Ex-president of Kosovo Thaçi sentenced to 25 years for war crimes

The Hague/Amsterdam (AP/dpa) - The former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, was on Wednesday sentenced to 25 years in jail for war crimes committed during the war for independence from Serbia in 1998-99 by a special court in The Hague. The court ruled that he was responsible for 96 murders.

Thaçi was charged with other serious crimes, such as torture and cruel treatment. Three co-defendants were also handed lengthy sentences. The verdicts are not final and can be appealed.

"The Trial Panel found that all four Accused were criminally responsible for the war crimes of arbitrary detention against 385 individuals, cruel treatment against 49 individuals, torture against 303 individuals, and murder against 96 individuals," a statement released by the court said.

Thaçi, 58, had previously described himself as "completely innocent" and received the verdict without showing any emotion as presiding judge Charles Smith read out the verdict.

Judge: trial about personal responsibility, not KLA's legitimacy

The prosecution had sought a 45-year prison sentence for him for the crimes committed in the late 1990s. Nearly 300 witnesses testified in the trial and 155 victims participated in the three-year proceedings.

According to the prosecution, Thaçi and three co-defendants were part of the leadership of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is alleged to have committed crimes against humanity.

The judge emphasized that the proceedings were not concerned with the KLA's goals or methods, but solely with "the individual criminal responsibility of the defendants" for war crimes.

Co-defendants Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi were sentenced to 18, 13 and 25 years respectively.

Other charges, including cases involving crimes against humanity, were not taken into account in the verdict because of insufficient evidence, the judge said.

Thaçi served between 2008 and 2020 as Kosovo's prime minister, foreign minister and president. He resigned from office nearly six years ago to face the court in The Hague.

All four defendants held leading positions in the KLA and high political office after the war.

After the war, Western politicians for years accepted Thaçi as a negotiating partner in efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia.

The KLA fought from 1998 to 1999 for the independence of predominantly Albanian Kosovo from Serbia. Independence was ultimately achieved with NATO's assistance, after Serbian security forces had committed serious war crimes against Kosovo's Albanian population.

Those crimes were investigated by the UN-established International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers were established separately in 2015 under international pressure. They form part of Kosovo's judicial system but are staffed by international judges and prosecutors. For security reasons, the court was relocated to The Hague.

Outrage in Kosovo

The verdict sparked outrage in Kosovo. "It is a sad, unjust, and undeserved decision," Kosovan Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca told journalists after leaving the courtroom in The Hague, describing it as a "devastating verdict for Kosovo and for our war of liberation."

Kosovo's opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which Thaçi founded after the Kosovo War in 1999 and led for 17 years, described the verdict as a "great injustice."

The allegations and evidence presented during the proceedings had been invented by Serbian propaganda "to criminalize the KLA's just war," the party said in a statement published on Facebook.

Thousands of people across Kosovo watched the verdict being read on large public screens. Some shouted “UCK,” the Albanian-language acronym for the Kosovo Liberation Army that Thaci once led before entering politics. They then returned home, according to a dpa reporter in Priština. Large protests against the proceedings, involving tens of thousands of participants, had already taken place the previous Saturday.

Later, masked protesters threw stones at the wall surrounding the compound of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, known as EULEX, on the outskirts of Pristina, smashing several windows.

In The Hague, several hundred Kosovars protested on Wednesday against the trial and the verdicts, according to the Dutch news agency ANP. Security forces were reportedly pelted with stones. Police used tear gas to disperse violent protesters.

Thaci was defiant to the end of his trial

As his trial ended in February, Thaci told judges: “Throughout my life, I stood with the people of Kosovo, defending freedom, life and dignity. I was always guided by the Western ideals of democracy, equality and justice.”

But the court ruled that Thaci and his co-defendants targeted political opponents and civilians perceived as collaborators and traitors during their time in the KLA.

“In reality, there is no indication that the victims in this case were spies or collaborators,” Smith said. Just having “Serbian friends or jobs in Serbian companies was enough to treat them as collaborators” of the enemy.

When fighting broke out, Thaci was a student who returned from what he described as political exile in Switzerland to join Kosovo’s struggle for independence. He earned the nickname “the Snake” for his ability to evade Serb forces during the conflict.

Esther Major, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for Europe, said the convictions “show that senior officials are not above the law.”

Most of the 13,000 people who died in the war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day campaign of NATO airstrikes against Serbian forces ended the fighting. About 1 million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were driven from their homes.

In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, a move that Belgrade refuses to recognize. Ties between Kosovo and Serbia remain tense, despite years of EU-mediated negotiations supported by the United States.