Wesley Clark (Photo: YTPrintScreen)
Former NATO commander for Europe Wesley Clark said on Sept. 17 that he is "shocked" by the Hague court's sentencing of four high ranking Kosovo Liberation Army officers to steep prison terms.
"I am shocked and angry. I know Thaci and his comrades, as well as everyone who fought in the war. I testified in court, I told them what I saw and I knew what was happening in Kosovo with regard to our cooperation with the KLA and never saw any evidence to justify a decision like this," Clark told the Albanian CNN-2 station.
He stressed that Thaci did a "an excellent job" to, as he said, protect the innocent Serb population. "I met with Thaci three times during the clashes and also in Rambouillet. I met him, of course, when I was in Kosovo. What happened there was an uprising against an authoritarian regime and the many crimes that some Serbs committed against their Albanian neighbors," Clark said.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague sentenced on Sept. 16 Hashim Thaci and Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years in prison, Kadri Veseli to 18 and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years in prison. They were found guilty of war crimes including the illegal or arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder.
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