Hague court sentences Hashim Thaçi to 25 years for Kosovo war crimes

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague sentenced former president Hashim Thaçi to 25 years in prison on 16 September for war crimes committed during Kosovo’s 1998-99 war with Serbia. Presiding Judge Charles Smith read the sentence as Thaçi, 58, stood in a suit and said nothing. He had resigned the presidency nearly six years ago to face the indictment.

The panel found him responsible, as part of a joint criminal enterprise, for arbitrary detention of 385 people, cruel treatment of 49, torture of 303 and murder of 96. The court said most of the dead were civilians, often labelled as spies or collaborators. Six counts of crimes against humanity were dismissed. Judges said prosecutors had not proved a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, the legal threshold for those charges.

The other three sentences

Jakup Krasniqi, the former KLA spokesman, also received 25 years. Kadri Veseli, former intelligence chief, received 18 years. Rexhep Selimi, former head of operations, received 13 years. Time already served counts. Prosecutors had asked for 45 years. All four men can appeal. Thaçi’s brother Gani told reporters the family considers him innocent and will wait for the appeal.

The Specialist Chambers is an EU-backed court that sits in the Netherlands and applies Kosovo law. It was built because Kosovo’s own courts were not trusted to try KLA commanders who later became the state’s political class. Thaçi was the wartime political leader of the KLA and later prime minister and president. In Pristina he is still introduced as a founder of the country. In The Hague he is a convicted commander.

Why the split verdict will travel

Dropping crimes against humanity while keeping war crimes is not a technicality. It means the court accepted that specific crimes happened and that these four men were responsible for them. It refused to treat the KLA campaign as a systematic attack on civilians as a group. That line will be quoted in Kosovo as partial vindication and in Serbia as a partial evasion.

Supporters scuffled with Dutch police outside the court. Thousands had already rallied in Pristina. Banners asked the judges to “declare them innocent.” Those scenes will continue through the appeal. The sentence does not rewrite the 1999 NATO war or Serbia’s own record in Kosovo. It does put a 25-year number on a man who led both a guerrilla army and a recognised state.

The next document that matters is the written judgment and the notices of appeal. Until those are filed, the usable facts are the four terms, the 96 murders the court attributed to the enterprise, and the acquittal on the humanity counts. That is a heavy verdict that still leaves both capitals room to tell their own story about what the KLA was.