The lawyer who cleared the Croatian executioner will defend the Kosovo war criminal
The judge of the Special Court for Kosovo in The Hague approved the request of the ex-“president” of Kosovo and warlord Hashim Thaci, according to which lawyer Gregory Keyhoe will defend him.
Previously, Keyhoe defended the Croatian general Ante Gotovina at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), who was facing a 24-year sentence, but was eventually acquitted.
As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, today the judge announced that he approves the early dismissal of Hashim Thaci's former lawyer, David Hooper, and orders the Registry of the Court to immediately appoint Quiho as the war criminal's chief defense attorney. The judge also ordered Hooper to provide all necessary assistance to the new lawyer in transferring cases, and to continue to comply with the code of professional conduct after the termination of Thaci's duties as lead counsel. In addition to the suspended Hooper, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army was also defended by four other lawyers - Dusted Palaska, Samuel Blom-Cooper, Pierre Richard Prosper and Sophie Menegon.
Previously, Gregory Keyhoe defended the Croatian general Ante Gotovina at the ICTY, who was accused of massacres of Serbs and cruel treatment of prisoners of war. Gotovina himself had a rather bad track record - at the age of 16 he emigrated from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to France, joined the Foreign Legion, as part of which he participated in punitive actions in black Africa, then in secret operations in Latin America, in France itself he was convicted of jewelry store robbery, extortion and kidnapping for ransom.
He managed to flee the country and, in 1991, joined the Croatian National Guard ( ZNG ), formed from Nazis and the dregs of society. After the National Guard was transformed into the country's armed forces, he quickly rose through the ranks, participating in military operations against the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republic of Srpska. He was appointed commander of the Split Military Corps and played leading roles in Operations Summer 95, Storm, and Mistral, including the assault on Knin, the capital of the Republic of Serbia. These operations included mass ethnic cleansing of the Serbian population.
In 2011, Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years in prison, but in 2012 he was completely acquitted and released. In Croatia, the general was greeted as a folk hero.
Let us recall that Hashim Thaçi, as well as his close accomplice Kadri Veseli and other representatives of the top Kosovo Liberation Army, who after the war took places in the ranks of the political elite of the region, are accused of committing a number of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, kidnapping, violent detention and torture.
The lawyer who cleared the Croatian executioner will defend the Kosovar war criminal.