Defense disputes claim that Thaçi aimed to take control of Kosovo

Defense disputes claim that Thaçi aimed to take control of Kosovo

Former President Hashim Thaçi’s defender, Nina Tavakoli, said that Thaçi, in his capacity as Prime Minister in the interim Government, had no real power.

“He could not sign any meaningful commitment to Kosovars in his role as prime minister,” she said, recalling the testimony of former British diplomat John Stewart Duncan that Thaçi could not sign the KLA disarmament agreement as prime minister of the interim government.

“Prime Minister was a title, not an impetus through which the Joint Criminal Enterprise [a term the SPO uses in the indictment to refer to the defendants and several other former KLA superiors] could be brought to life,” she said.

Tavakoli said that initially, in the early days of UNMIK, Thaçi had competed with this institution for power, but later accepted the authority of this administration and cooperated with it.

She raised the question of how Thaçi intended to take control of Kosovo, when he had agreed to disarm the KLA, agreed to cooperate with UNMIK, and had accepted defeat in the post-war elections until 2007, when he won them.

Currently, the session is in lunch break. /REL/