Hague court jails Hashim Thaci for 25 years over Kosovo war crimes

A panel at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on 16 September sentenced Hashim Thaci, the former president of Kosovo, to 25 years in prison 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 counts in open court. Thaci, 58, wearing a suit, stood silent. The panel found him guilty of arbitrary arrest and detention of at least 385 people, cruel treatment of at least 49, torture of at least 303, and murder of 96. The judges said he was a key member of a joint criminal enterprise that set up detention sites and identified people the KLA treated as opponents, spies or collaborators. Most of the victims, the court said, were innocent civilians. Some were fellow Kosovo Albanians. Some were members of ethnic minorities.

Three other former KLA leaders were sentenced the same day. Jakup Krasniqi, once the guerrilla force's spokesman and later a parliamentary speaker, received 25 years. Kadri Veseli, former intelligence chief, received 18 years. Rexhep Selimi, former head of operations, received 13 years. Time already spent in custody will count against those terms. All four had been in detention for close to six years. The trial began in 2023. All four pleaded not guilty.

What the judges would not find

Prosecutors had also charged six counts of crimes against humanity, including persecution and enforced disappearance, and had asked for terms of up to 45 years. The panel dismissed those counts. It held that the prosecution had not proved a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population as a whole, the legal element that turns a war crime into a crime against humanity. Some of the alleged acts, the judges said, fell after the end of the 1998-99 war and therefore sat outside that frame.

Thaci still faces a separate case on witness intimidation. Judgment in that file has not been delivered. His brother Gani told reporters the family is convinced of his innocence and is waiting for the appeal. Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the verdict must be corrected on appeal. Crowds in Pristina had already gathered to demand acquittal. There were scuffles outside the court in The Hague between supporters and Dutch police.

A court built for one war

The Specialist Chambers is an EU-backed court sitting in the Netherlands and applying Kosovo law. It was created because witnesses in Kosovo itself could not be protected. Thaci resigned the presidency nearly six years ago to face the indictment. In Kosovo he is still widely treated as a founder of the state. In Serbia he is treated as a guerrilla commander who should have been tried decades earlier. The split is the political fact the sentence now hardens.

The 1998-99 war killed more than 13,000 people. Serbian forces and the KLA both committed crimes. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia tried Slobodan Milosevic and a roster of Serbian and Yugoslav officers. The Specialist Chambers was the instrument built later for the KLA command. Wednesday's judgment is the first time that command has been given prison terms of this length.

Appeals will take years. The immediate effect is simpler. A man who led Kosovo into independence, then into the presidency, will serve a quarter-century sentence unless a higher panel tears the verdict up. The court that issued it sits a long way from Pristina, which is why it was able to issue it at all.