Kosovo reels as Hague convicts former President Thaci of war crimes

In Pristina's main square on Wednesday, thousands of people gathered to watch the verdict from The Hague on large screens, many holding flags of the Kosovo Liberation Army. When the judges announced that former President Hashim Thaci and three other KLA leaders had been convicted of war crimes, the crowd went silent. The silence broke into chants of support for the four men, and within hours, groups of citizens were attempting to tear down sections of the perimeter wall around EULEX, the EU Rule of Law Mission compound. Kosovo police and special units moved in to stop the damage.

Thaci, who led Kosovo's fight for independence and later served as the country's president, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Jakup Krasniqi, a former KLA spokesman and multiple-time speaker of parliament, received the same sentence. Kadri Veseli, who ran the KLA's intelligence operations during the war, was sentenced to 18 years. Rexhep Selimi, the KLA's chief military police inspector, received 13 years. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a tribunal based in The Hague and staffed by international judges, convicted all four of war crimes against civilians and political opponents who opposed the KLA during the 1998-99 conflict. Judges dismissed charges of crimes against humanity.

The verdict landed like a blow across Kosovo's political establishment. Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca, who sat in the courtroom as the decision was read, called it "a terrible judgment for Kosovo, for our liberation war" and "a major blow to the state and to the domestic narrative." Prime Minister Albin Kurti described the convictions as "an unacceptable injustice." The Democratic Party of Kosovo, which Thaci founded after the war ended, issued a statement saying the judgment was "unjust and unacceptable," and suggested the evidence was "fabricated" material promoted by Serbian propaganda to discredit the independence struggle. Acting President Albulena Haxhiu framed the convictions as a wound to the nation's memory, noting that Kosovo had experienced state violence that killed civilians, committed massacres, and expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians from their homes.

The tribunal itself was established by Kosovo's parliament in 2015 to investigate allegations of crimes by KLA members during the war. The 1998-99 conflict killed roughly 13,000 civilians, most of them Kosovo Albanians, and displaced more than a million people. Thaci had been a student in Switzerland before returning to lead the independence struggle. Western leaders, including those who negotiated the 1999 Rambouillet peace talks, saw him as a figure who could guide Kosovo toward statehood. After NATO intervened against Serbian forces and they withdrew, Thaci founded a political party, became prime minister, then president. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Serbia, Russia, and China have never recognized, though more than 100 countries have. Thaci resigned as president in 2020 to face the charges.

Defense lawyers for all four men said they would appeal. The convictions mark a rare moment when the international legal system has held accountable leaders of a liberation movement that Western governments supported and that most of the world now recognizes as a legitimate state. For Kosovo, the verdict has opened a rift between the country's official narrative of a just war and the tribunal's finding that war crimes occurred. The appeals process will likely extend the legal and political tension for years.