Prosecution Claims Thaçi Gave Direct Instructions to Control Bislim Zyrapi’s Testimony

In The Hague, the final day of the trial against Hashim Thaçi, Bashkim Smakaj, Isni Kilaj, Fadil Fazliu and Hajredin Kuçi is underway, on charges of attempted obstruction of justice.

Today, the parties’ replies are scheduled, after two days last week, Thursday and Friday, when the Specialist Prosecution and the defense teams delivered their closing arguments.

The Specialist Prosecution, which had an hour at its disposal for its reply, insists that former president Hashim Thaçi intervened directly to manipulate the testimony of Bislim Zyrapi.

Prosecutor Joshua Hafetz highlighted details from the visits of September 9 and October 7, 2023, where, in the presence of accused Smakaj, according to him, Thaçi gave detailed instructions on what the witness should or should not say before the trial panel, particularly regarding the General Staff.

“The claim now that Thaçi’s instructions, as to the messages that needed to be conveyed to Zyrapi, were merely helpful and were instructions to bring out the truth and not to mix things up, in quotation marks, contradicts what the transcribed words show… Mr. Thaçi’s repeated instructions, in the visits with Mr. Smakaj, as in the case of the visit with Kuçi, aimed to control what Zyrapi would say, or what he would not say before the trial panel. In particular, the aim was to control what Zyrapi would say regarding the General Staff,” said Hafetz.

The prosecution thus asked that the transcripts be looked at carefully to see Thaçi’s true intent.

“In all his instructions, certainly Mr. Thaçi’s aim was to help himself. Many of these concrete instructions are given in detail in the prosecution’s trial file and directly cite the transcripts. We ask you, honorable judges, to look at the documentation of this case,” said the prosecutor.

Hashim Thaçi’s defense has been allocated 30 minutes, and 15 minutes each for the other defense teams. /kp/