The second day of the trial against former KLA leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi is being held in The Hague.

Today it is the turn of the defense side of the accused to present their arguments before the Special Court.

Ben Emmerson , the lawyer of the former Speaker of the Parliament of Kosovo, Kadri Veseli, said that his client has no witnesses and no evidence that he has committed any of the crimes he is being accused of.

“None of the witnesses have seen Kadri Veseli do anything inappropriate. Until last week there was a witness on the OSP list, even though he was dead and the evidences were on paper. There was a witness who claimed to have seen Vesel in Kukës interviewing a detainee. However, it was obvious from the beginning and after we saw his statements and testimonies that this witness was wrong regarding the identification of Vesel, and he himself said that he was wrong. OSP now admits that this witness incorrectly identified Vesel. And OSP thinks it is unnecessary to change the indictment for this. They do not propose to present evidence to support this,” said lawyer Ben Emmerson.

Kadri Veseli’s defense lawyer, Ben Emmerson, denied the accusations that Veseli and the KLA have targeted supporters from the Democratic League of Kosovo.

“One of the problems with the evidence that the prosecution has is the notion that a relatively small number of individuals, and that the leadership of the KLA, have conspired together to target the supporters of the DLK in order to persecute them, but as you will hear, this is a completely different opinion from what happened on the scene”, he said.

According to Emmerson, “most of the members of the KLA were supporters of the DLK”.

“They were not two separate groups, they were united. There have been conflicts, there have been differences of opinion, as in any case when two political forces come together”, said Emmerson.