Pristina fills Skanderbeg Square before the Thaci verdict

Tens of thousands of people packed central Pristina on Saturday to demand acquittal for former president Hashim Thaci and three other wartime Kosovo Liberation Army commanders. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court seated in The Hague but created under Kosovo law, will deliver a first-instance verdict on Wednesday, 16 September, at 10:00.

The four men are Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi. Prosecutors charge ten counts: six crimes against humanity (persecution, imprisonment, other inhumane acts, torture, murder and enforced disappearance) and four war crimes (unlawful arrest and detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder). The period in the indictment runs from at least March 1998 to September 1999, at sites in Kosovo and northern Albania. One hundred and fifty-six victims are participating in the case. The indictment does not include organ trafficking.

What the square heard

Protesters carried red and black Albanian flags and portraits of the four. Banners read "In the name of the people, declare them innocent," "Liberators, bring them home" and "Kosovo is waiting." A large digital clock in the city centre has been counting down to the hearing for weeks. The crowd chanted "UCK," the Albanian initials of the KLA.

Hysni Gucati, a veterans' leader, told the march that "Kosovo's freedom was won through sacrifice" and that "no courtroom will be able to erase this truth." Fadil Gashi, who came by bus from Gjilan, said coming to the square was "the least we can do." The rally was organised by Freedom Has A Name, a group set up to speak for the detained former commanders.

Inside Kosovo the four are widely treated as founders of the state. Thaci resigned the presidency in 2020 when the charges were filed. He had been the KLA's political chief and later prime minister and president of Europe's newest recognised country. Outside Kosovo the same files describe a campaign against Serbs, Roma and Albanians whom the KLA treated as opponents or as collaborators with Belgrade. About 13,000 people died in the 1998-99 war.

The sentence the prosecutors want

In closing arguments the prosecution asked for 45 years for each of the four. The defence asked for acquittal. All four deny guilt. The Specialist Chambers were established in Kosovo under international pressure after a Council of Europe report. Many KLA veterans call the court a political project. The government in Pristina still has to live with the verdict, because the court is formally a Kosovo court.

Wednesday's ruling is first instance. Appeals will follow. What Saturday showed is the domestic constraint on any politician who treats the four as ordinary defendants. The square has already written the sentence it wants. The panel in The Hague will write a different document, and the gap between those two texts will set the next phase of Kosovo's argument with its own wartime past.