Michael Durkee in The Hague said that Hashim Thaçi did not have the authority and competence to stop the violence that took place in the summer of 1999.
"Hashim Thaçi had no competence, no authority to do this at that time," Durkee said.
He said that he bases this on the fact that when the KLA took over demilitarization, efforts were being made to achieve this.
But, the witness said, this made him realize that it was all based on local levels and there was no command structure that Thaçi could use to stop the violence.
"There was absolutely no command structure that he could use to stop the violence," Durkee said.
Durkee said they had the impression that in Kosovo there was no consolidated command structure to issue orders not to carry out certain actions on the ground.
"We had this impression that there was no solid or consolidated command structure for someone to be at a high level in Pristina and give orders that would then lead to actions or certain operations on the ground in the operational areas. The operational area commanders had considerable autonomy and there was a willingness to act on their own when they saw fit," Durkee said.
This was not the case in Kosovo as it usually is in Western armies, according to Durkee.
"That is, there was no consolidated chain of command in the sense of direct command coordination as it is in the Western military," he stated.
Durkee claimed that Hashim Thaçi was one of the people who said that a multiethnic Kosovo should be created.
He claimed that Thaçi made a speech in 1999 calling for an end to violence.
With that, Thaçi's defense ended its questions and then continued with Krasniqi's defense, as Veseli and Selim had no questions. /Oath for Justice/
