Hague court gives Hashim Thaçi 25 years for Kosovo war crimes

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers sentenced former president Hashim Thaçi to 25 years in prison on Wednesday for war crimes committed while he was a senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998 and 1999. Presiding judge Charles Smith III read the verdict in The Hague.

The trial panel found Thaçi guilty of arbitrary detention of at least 385 people, cruel treatment of at least 49, torture of at least 303, and murder of 96. It said he was a key member of a joint criminal enterprise that set up detention sites and singled out alleged opponents, often described as spies or collaborators. "The vast majority of them were innocent civilians," the panel said.

Three co-defendants were sentenced the same day. Kadri Veseli, the KLA's former intelligence chief, received 18 years. Jakup Krasniqi, the former spokesman, received 25 years. Rexhep Selimi, the former head of operations, received 13 years. All four received credit for time already served. Thaçi has been in detention for almost six years. The trial opened in 2023.

Prosecutors had asked for 45 years and had charged six counts of crimes against humanity as well as war crimes. The panel acquitted on crimes against humanity. It held that the Specialist Prosecutor had not proved a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, the legal threshold for those counts. Some specific war-crime incidents also failed. The convictions that stood are war crimes tied to the 1998-99 conflict with Serbian forces, not to the post-war period.

Thaçi, 58, resigned the presidency nearly six years ago to face the indictment. He has denied the charges. His brother Gani told reporters the family would wait on appeal. Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the verdict must be "corrected" on appeal. Supporters scuffled with Dutch police outside the court. In Pristina, crowds had already rallied at the weekend with banners demanding acquittal.

The Specialist Chambers is an EU-backed court that sits in the Netherlands and applies Kosovo law. It was built to hear KLA cases after local courts were judged unable to protect witnesses. Thaçi still faces a separate file on witness intimidation. He has pleaded not guilty there. That judgment has not been issued.

The 1998-99 war killed thousands and ended with NATO's air campaign and United Nations administration. Serbian forces were responsible for mass killings and expulsions. KLA units ran their own detention circuit. The Wednesday verdict is the first time the four men who later ran Kosovo's state have been convicted, as a group, for that circuit. It does not rewrite the rest of the war. It does fix a number, 96 murders, to the command that later became a presidency.

Appeals will take years. Until they finish, Thaçi and Krasniqi are looking at 25-year terms, Veseli at 18, Selimi at 13. For a generation in Kosovo that learned those names as the authors of independence, the numbers are the story. For the families of the 96, they are the first court count that treated the dead as victims of the army that won.