Third day of Rubin's testimony in The Hague/ What did he state?

2025-09-17 10:41:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Today is the third day of James Rubin's testimony in The Hague. Rubin stated that the KLA was not organized from a military point of view.

He said there were more groups, clans, but no real military structure.

"As far as I saw, there were no battalions, brigades or units in the KLA, I don't believe there was any organization from a military point of view," said Rubin.

Rubin denied having any knowledge that there were military police in the KLA.

"I know they had uniforms, some did, some didn't. We didn't consider them commanders or general staff."

Regarding the KLA communiqués, Rubin said he has read many of them, but said they seemed to him like attempts to make the KLA more important than it was.

"For me, it was just manipulation," he added. "I often read KLA communiqués, but they seemed to me like attempts to make the KLA more important than it was. For me, it was just manipulation," Rubin said.

Irish judge Fergal Gaynor aired a portion of a 2000 documentary released by the BBC, in which former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refers to Thaçi as a leader.

The judge said that yesterday Rubin stated that Adem Demaçi was a leader. Rubin responded that Demaçi was a person of high status in Kosovo, on a par with Nelson Mandela. However, he corrected the judge regarding Albright's statement.

"I think she chose her words carefully. She didn't say leader, she said one of the leaders. And there's a big difference. She compared him to Gary Adams. A leader who led the nation to freedom.

"We wanted him to become a leader of a nation, which would hopefully be free. I'm correcting you, she said a leader of a group. A leader of a delegation that was elected by the Albanian delegation. He was one of, he had a leadership position. Even if he said leader of the delegation, that's correct," Rubin added, REL writes.

The judge also asked whether Rubin was aware that Thaçi had threatened two members of the Kosovo delegation in Rambouillet who were not part of the KLA, after the broadcast video showed Veton Surroi and Dukagjin Gorani speaking in that documentary.

"Let's separate the physical threat from the moral one. No, I didn't know that there was a physical threat, but I know that there was ideological pressure for or against independence because that was the main thing for the movement during the war. So Albright threatened Thaçi, saying that if he didn't sign, if he left the people unprotected by the Serbs... I also heard that Demaçi was threatened," Rubin said.