KFOR Officer Testifies in Thaci Trial about Torture Room Found in KLA Headquarters in Gnjilane in 1999

Court for KLA crimes in The Hague (YouTube screenshot)

Testifying in The Hague in an Aug. 19 session in the trial against former Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaci and co-defendants, charged with crimes committed in Kosovo and Albania in 1998 and 1999, then-KFOR member from the U.S. Steven Russell testified that KFOR had discovered a "torture room" in an "illegal" KLA headquarters in Gnjilane in the summer of 1999.

Thaci's co-defendants in charges of crimes against ethnic Albanians, Serbs and Roma in over 40 KLA detention centers are Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi. All defendants were members of the KLA headquarters, and then of the "provisional government of Kosovo."

Testifying for the prosecution, Russell, who was an operations officer of the U.S. forces in KFOR, said that, on Aug. 9, 1999, international forces had raided a boarding school building in Gnjilane which housed an illegal KLA headquarters, in contravention of the Kumanovo Agreement and Resolution 1244.

In addition to considerable amounts of weapons, ammunition, mines and other equipment the KLA had to hand over according to the agreement, Russell testified that KFOR also found a "torture room" in the basement of the boarding school building, with a chair surrounded by stains of "very fresh blood" and "sharp instruments, various clubs, pipes, electrical wires."

In addition to "proof of the crime," KFOR uncovered an "illegal police unit" of the KLA, called "Blackshirts," Russell said.

The U.S. officer confirmed that NATO "chose a side" in Kosovo. We interfered with Serbia's sovereignty to relieve suffering in Kosovo, based on U.N. Resolution 1244, he added. Russell also testified that NATO's bombing of Serbia had not been a peacekeeping mission, but forcing the outcome.