Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after a war crimes tribunal in The Hague found him guilty of murder, torture, illegal detention and cruel treatment committed during the 1998–99 Kosovo conflict.
The judgment was delivered on Wednesday, September 16, in one of the most closely watched proceedings arising from Kosovo’s war for independence from Serbia.
Thaci, 58, was a senior commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army before later becoming Kosovo’s president. The tribunal found him responsible as part of a joint criminal enterprise for crimes committed against people regarded as political opponents or collaborators with Serbian security forces.
The court said KLA forces murdered 96 people and that Thaci was also convicted over the arbitrary detention of 385 people, torture of 303 and cruel treatment of 49. According to the judgment, none of the victims covered by those convictions were actively participating in hostilities when the crimes were committed.
Presiding Judge Charles Smith said the criminal plan involved establishing detention facilities in KLA-controlled areas, identifying people perceived as opponents, arresting and detaining them and, in some cases, killing them. Victims were subjected to beatings, confined in small cells and deprived of adequate food and medical care, the court found.
Thaci, who stood silently as the verdict and sentence were delivered, had denied all the charges against him. He has the right to appeal the judgment.
The ruling immediately drew strong reactions in Kosovo and among Thaci’s supporters. Hundreds demonstrated in The Hague, where brief clashes occurred after protesters attempted to approach the tribunal, while another crowd marched through Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, as riot police were deployed.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama also criticised the verdict, posting an image of barbed wire across a map of Europe accompanied by the word “Unbelievable.” Police in Kosovo said preparations had been made with international peacekeeping forces in case demonstrations turned violent, while the United States advised its citizens to avoid crowds.
Prosecutors had sought a 45-year prison term against Thaci and three other former senior KLA commanders. However, the three-judge panel dismissed six crimes-against-humanity charges after finding that prosecutors had not proved the alleged crimes formed part of widespread or systematic attacks against the civilian population as a whole.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was established in 2015 to prosecute former KLA members accused of crimes during and after the conflict. Wednesday’s verdict leaves Thaci with the option of challenging his conviction and sentence through the tribunal’s appeals process.
