If he is convicted, it will mean NATO collaborated with a war criminal against Serbia

If he is convicted, it will mean NATO collaborated with a war criminal against Serbia

According to him, if the former leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is found guilty, it will mean that NATO fought against Milosevic's regime in 1999 with the help of a war criminal.

Martens is the correspondent for Southern Europe of "Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung", and the Belgrade newspaper states that it was he who pointed out some incredible details following the trial against Thaci and others in The Hague, which started on Monday, in an interesting series on his Twitter account.

A dilemma sheds special light on the whole case: "Is the process against Thaci actually a process against NATO?" And what does that have to do with the fact that Tachi is being defended by a "dream team" of lawyers in which 16 million euros were invested from the Pristina government's budget and who knows how many more "for the best defense that stolen money can pay for", writes Blic.

What a Thaci conviction would show, Martens argues, has far-reaching historical significance.

"Hashim Thaci has the greatest interest that Hashim Thaci is not found guilty... But there is another key question: If Thaci is found guilty, it would mean that in 1999 NATO fought against the crimes of the Milosevic regime with the help of another war criminal. This does not mean that NATO's intervention was wrong - but the story from 1999 would have gained an additional element that historians will not be able to ignore," Martens pointed out.

When asked why he specifically raises the question "is the process against Thaci, a process against NATO or can it turn into one" and what will the process against Thaci and others mean for NATO, Martens answers:

"If Thaci is convicted, this verdict will indirectly affect NATO as well. Not legally, but politically. This would not mean that NATO was waging a criminal war (I still believe that war was a lesser evil in 1999), but it would mean that NATO was cooperating with an organization that, according to the judgment of the international court, was involved in war crimes", the German journalist pointed out.

“The prosecution alleges that the KLA was a criminal enterprise. Since NATO worked with the KLA in 1999, the question is: Is the prosecution saying that NATO knowingly partnered with a criminal enterprise?”, Martens makes a point.