Bislim Zyrapi, former Chief of KLA General Staff, after testifying for three weeks at the war crimes trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three co-accused, admitted several prosecution points but also confirmed some of the defence’s stances.
By Xhorxhina Bami
n an unprecedented three-week-long public testimony at the trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three co-accused at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague, the 75th witness provided testimony that bolstered both the prosecution and defence cases.
Bislim Zyrapi, former Chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, General Staff, testified from July 1 to 18 in almost fully public sessions.
During prosecution questioning, he explained the KLA’s structure, and that the General Staff Commander was responsible for replacing operational zone commanders and for attempting to turn the KLA into a proper army.
The four defendants in the trial – Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi – are accused of having individual and command responsibility for crimes committed against prisoners held at KLA detention facilities in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania, including 102 murders. The crimes were allegedly committed between roughly March 1998 and September 1999, during and just after the war in Kosovo. All four accused have pleaded not guilty.
A series of prosecution witnesses have testified in closed sessions about alleged abductions and torture by KLA members, according to prosecution summaries of their testimony. The victims of these crimes were either the witnesses themselves or their relatives, who in some cases disappeared completely without their bodies ever being found.
Zyrapi, during questioning from the defence, said that often the General Staff was not informed of the actions of operational zones and, despite attempts, it had not been possible for the KLA to fully exercise control over its lower-level units, partly because of Serbian offensives.
In the trial, the defence is trying to prove the KLA didn’t have a proper army command structure, so the defendants cannot be held responsible for crimes committed by lower-ranking fighters.
The Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, SPO, is attempting to prove the opposite, namely that the accused had decision making powers within the KLA General Staff and also in “implementation of plans, policies, and practices …including in the form of communiques, public statements, internal rules and regulations, structures, and information-gathering and reporting mechanisms, as according to the indictment.
“The crimes followed a consistent pattern, impacted the victims’ wider families and communities, and were intended to serve as a warning and to exert pressure on the targeted population as a whole, deterring opposition to, and enforcing absolute unity behind, the KLA/PGoK (Provisional Government of Kosovo),” the indictment reads.
The SPO acknowledges that while the KLA was “operating underground” initially, “throughout the Indictment Period the KLA was an organised armed group with a sufficient degree of organisation to control territory, and to plan and carry out synchronised armed attacks and other offensive and defensive military operations”.
The indictment argues that the existence of the KLA General Staff, Operational (Sub-)Zones and issue of political declarations and Communiques showed the level of proper army structure of the KLA. “From at least June 1998, the KLA had an official spokesperson, and various written rules and Regulations,” it continues.
On July 2, answering questions from prosecutor Clare Lawson, Zyrapi said the KLA General Staff had three main units. “Observation Battalion [a special unit that observes and reacts in emergency situations but does not issue arrests], the Military Police [that protects the General Staff and its facilities] and the Logistics Company [to support the General Staff’s needs regarding food, clothing and other necessary supplies]”.
He also explained that, in 1998, “after meetings with zone commanders and receiving the reports from them, a general report was conducted and filed to the deputy commander. At the time [the deputy commander] was mainly Jakup Krasniqi”.
Nonetheless, besides confirming the “official” structure of the KLA, Zyrapi also told the court that the KLA did not manage to establish complete control over its units.
On July 8, during questioning by Thaci’s lawyer, Luka Misetic, Zyrapi said that the Provisional Government – of which the indictment described Thaci as a Prime Minister by the end of March 1999 – did not exert considerable influence either.
“It was difficult for the General Staff to have influence on the units,” he told the court, claiming that therefore it was also not possible for the Provisional Government to have much influence, considering it was only at the beginning stage of being established and because of “tough offensives” of Serbian forces, and “the movement of our forces”.
Zyrapi told the court that it was not possible even for the General Staff to communicate with lower ranking units, and that the KLA had worked on restructuring itself from June to September 1998.
He claimed that members of the General Staff, including himself, would make propaganda to portray the KLA as stronger and more organised than it really was, to win the trust of both the people of Kosovo and the international community.
According to the indictment, from at least March 1998, Thaci, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi were “among the highest-ranking officials in the KLA and/or PGoK” which gave them “de facto authority as senior leadership figures in the KLA and PGoK”, therefore “each had
effective control over the (joint criminal enterprise) JCE Members and Tools who committed the crimes charged in this indictment”.
But Zyrapi on July 9 told the court, during questioning by Veseli’s lawyer Ben Emmerson, that the accused had never asked for any individual to be arrested.
The indictment says that “by June 1998, Kadri Veseli was a member of the KLA Political Directorate and head of the KLA intelligence services,” and, with the establishment of the PGoK, by late March 1999, he became chief of “the Kosovo Intelligence Service (Shërbimi Informativ i Kosovës, ‘SHIK’),” which Zyrapi claimed was not a part of KLA.
During questioning by Rexhep Selimi’s lawyer, Geoffrey Roberts, the witness claimed that he was not aware that any ethnic Serb civilians were arrested. He also insisted that operational zones often took action without the knowledge of the General Staff, which negatively affected attempts to create a structured army. These actions included the attack on Rahovec/Orahovac in July 1998.
According to the indictment, “Serb civilians were abducted and later detained, mistreated, and killed”, in the attack on Rahovec/Orahovac.
Zyrapi also told Roberts that, when he earlier told the SPO that the kidnapping of civilians was common knowledge, he was referring only to this Rahovec/Orahovac case, not to the entire territory of Kosovo.
“The responsibility falls to the concrete person who committed the act,” Zyrapi had said in his previous testimony to the SPO, claiming that he was not aware that a report on prisoners was given to any member of the General Staff’s Operational Directorate.
According to Zyrapi, it was not possible for the General Staff to conduct investigations because not even “the structure of the [General] Staff was proper” at the time, let alone the investigation structure.
“By June 1998, Rexhep Selimi was Head of the KLA Operational Directorate. By at least August 1998, he was KLA Inspector General,” the indictment says.
Zyrapi noted that Selimi, as Inspector General, did not have his own unit but could have used the Military Police, but only after getting the permission of the Commander. “Selimi did not conduct arrests with this unit,” he claimed.
