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By:
Ardit Kika
- September 22, 2025 19:06
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British diplomat John Duncan, former political advisor to NATO commander Wesley Clark, began his testimony at the Specialist Chambers on Monday. He said that in June 99, and even earlier, he saw the KLA as a guerrilla force and not a regular army. According to Duncan, the decision-making power in the KLA was held by the area commanders.
British diplomat John Duncan, former advisor to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Wesley Clark, has stated before the Special Court in The Hague that he saw the KLA at the time as a guerrilla force and not as a regular army.
At the trial of the former leaders of the KLA General Staff, Duncan said that the claim that the KLA was a regular army with an organized structure suited Serbia.
Duncan also spoke about the reception he received in Kosovo after the war, where a guard was lined up in his honor. According to him, this photograph was not the true image of the KLA organization.
"From the experience of visits to other countries, you can expect a well-dressed guard, while the army is fragmented, there is no need to mention the names of the countries so as not to cause difficulties, but this is not an expression of a good organizational structure. From my experience and from the information we received from various sources on the ground, as could be expected, it was a very chaotic guerrilla army, as it was expected to be in fact and which was in fact disorganized, but was becoming better and better organized," the witness said.
In Thaçi's defense questions regarding the structure of the KLA, Duncan said that NATO itself had difficulty understanding the structure of the KLA. According to the witness, the KLA was heterogeneous.
"That was the difficulty we were facing there, because they didn't have a hierarchical structure. They were organized differently. The powers were different in different places," Duncan said.
He said that only Serbia spread the claim about the structure and hierarchy of the KLA, as it matched its propaganda narrative of structured violence, as well as to justify losses at the front.
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The KLA was a very disorganized guerrilla army, it was not regular.
Regarding Thaçi, Duncan said that he enjoyed authority, but was part of a team where military leaders had superiority over him.
"The real power over the KLA structure was held by the zone commanders, and this was confirmed to us when we met with General Agim Çeku at the beginning of the agreement negotiations," Duncan stated.
He said that Commander Agim Çeku himself had requested the involvement of zone commanders in negotiations for the disarmament of the KLA after the war.
"He told us that I cannot do this without the presence of the zone commanders. You have to come to Kosovo, he said. I believed him. He was very insistent on this issue. He said that Thaçi was not available to do such a thing and that Thaçi needed to be consulted. Then he added that I will not do such a thing if the zone commanders do not participate in the negotiations," the witness said.
He also served in Albania after the fall of communism.
"This was a closed country for 46 years, and I was really interested in understanding how the society worked, because that was the basis of our job as diplomats. We had to explain to our superiors how the society worked, what was going on inside it, how the powers that be operated, what you could influence them with and why they could sometimes be difficult. That's the job of a diplomat - to explain all aspects of a society to their respective superiors," Duncan said.
After the defense lawyers, the Specialist Prosecution Office questioned the witness. Specialist Prosecutor Matthew Halling asked him if he had seen any KLA communiqués, and Duncan responded that he had seen very few of them.
He said that in what he had seen, there was "no mention of executions or killings of collaborators."
Prosecutor Halling then presented a communiqué, allegedly from the KLA, number 28, stating that two collaborators had been killed.
The Specialized Prosecution will continue its questioning on Tuesday. Presiding Judge Charles Smith III has stated that this witness's testimony will last two or three days.
The defense of Thaçi and other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), accused of war crimes, has called a total of 11 witnesses, who will appear in the coming weeks.
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Clark: There was no command and control structure in the KLA
Two other witnesses will be presented by Jakup Krasniqi's defense, while the defense of Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selim has not yet called witnesses.
The defense's testimony began last week with former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin and legal advisor to the Kosovo delegation during the 1999 Rambouillet negotiations, Paul Williams.
Rubin, over the course of three days, spoke mainly about Thaçi's role in the war, which he said was political and had no authority for military decisions within the KLA.
Rubin said there is no information linking Thaçi or Krasniqi to the murder allegations.
Williams, during his testimony, also said that Thaçi represented the KLA as a credible negotiator, but did not have full authority over regional commanders.
The trial of four former KLA superiors began in 2023.
Thaçi was the political leader of the KLA before and during the 1998–1999 war, Veseli was the head of the intelligence service, Krasniqi was the spokesman, and Selimi was a member of the general staff.
The indictment against them includes charges of illegal detention, torture, murder, crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance and persecution of hundreds of civilians and persons who did not participate in the fighting.
These crimes allegedly occurred between March 1998 and September 1999 in various locations in Kosovo, but also in northern Albania.
According to the Specialist Chambers, Thaçi, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi bear personal criminal responsibility for these crimes, but they all deny guilt.
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Clark's former advisor says Thaçi was a political leader, not a military one
Defense lawyers have stated that the KLA would not have gained the support of the international community if there had been a criminal plan, as prosecutors claim.
According to them, the indictment is based on a selective misinterpretation of events.
