The internationally backed Kosovo court’s verdict sentencing former President Hashim Thaçi to 25 years in prison for war crimes sparked shock and anger among most Kosovars on Wednesday.
Judges of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague found Thaçi and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders guilty of illegal arrests, torture, murder and cruel treatment during the 1998-1999 war for independence from Serbia.
But among many Kosovo Albanians, Thaçi and his co-defendants are still widely lauded as heroes of the independence movement — and their simmering anger threatened to escalate into wholesale riots.
In Prishtina, a crowd of young men marched towards the headquarters of the European Union’s Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), waving KLA flags and chanting the guerrilla group’s name.
Some scuffled with riot police and threw stones at the building. A small group remained in front of EULEX until Wednesday night, blocking traffic and defying police orders to clear the road and disperse.
The group eventually left for Prishtina airport to welcome Thaçi and Veseli’s sons, Endrit Thaçi and Klestor Veseli, upon their return from the sentencing.
In The Hague, angry demonstrators who had gathered near the court briefly clashed with police, with some climbing onto a police van as officers held them back from the court building.
Police dispersed the crowd with water cannon.
Earlier on Wednesday, thousands gathered in the capital Prishtina to watch the verdict on a large screen.
As the sentence was delivered, silence settled over the attendees, leaving many visibly stunned after weeks of preparations by Thaçi’s supporters for a possible acquittal.
“This process was not about justice, but politics,” said pensioner Tahir Bytyqi, one among the crowd that quickly dispersed after the proceedings finished.
‘Unacceptable injustice’
The trial has remained deeply controversial in the Western Balkan nation of some 1.6 million, with Premier Albin Kurti calling the verdict “a great and harmful punishment” and urging it to be “corrected” on appeal.
“These are unjust findings, but they are not final and will be subject to review on appeal,” Kurti said in a Facebook post.
“The reason the KLA was born was not, and cannot, be punished or tarnished.”
Thaçi was sentenced alongside former senior KLA figures Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Kadri Veseli. Krasniqi was sentenced to 25 years, Selimi to 13 and Veseli to 18.
The court said they had “contributed significantly” to a common criminal purpose targeting perceived opponents of the KLA’s political and military goals.
All four were acquitted of charges of crimes against humanity and can appeal the sentence.
During the appeals process, Thaçi and his co-accused will remain detained in The Hague. Thaçi also faces a second trial over alleged obstruction of justice related to this case, for which prosecutors have requested a sentence of six years.
The 58-year-old resigned as president and surrendered to the court after his 2020 indictment. He has been detained in The Hague since, with time served counting towards his sentence.
After the war, Thaçi remained a central political figure and played a key role in Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.
During the trial, images of the 58-year-old — who also served as prime minister and foreign minister — regularly appeared on huge billboards across the country, and his supporters organised rallies demanding his acquittal.
Murders and severe beatings
Although based in the Netherlands and staffed by international judges, the KSC was established under Kosovo law specifically to prosecute alleged crimes committed by KLA members during the war.
Deeply unpopular from its foundation, the court’s use of evidence supplied by Belgrade has further inflamed accusations of political bias.
But its mandate is heavily backed by international allies, and the court has previously convicted several people for crimes committed during the war.
Reading out the verdict, Judge Charles Smith said the “scale and nature” of the men’s crimes were “very serious”, including 96 murders of ethnic Albanians, Serbs and Roma, some of whom were their political opponents.
“Murder victims in this case were shot to death, and others died because of the severe beatings,” Smith added.
The court said many of the victims’ bodies were found in a condition that amounted to a further outrage upon their dignity, he said.
The crimes were committed between April 1998 and June 1999, during and just after the Kosovo war, which claimed some 13,000 lives and ended in a NATO intervention that pushed out Serbian forces.
Belgrade was not happy with Wednesday’s verdict either, but for different reasons.
“We in this moment have no reason to neither rejoice nor grieve,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said on Thursday, criticising the court for allegedly not taking into account crimes against ethnic Serb civilians and claiming anti-Serb bias.
“As I said, in the six counts that concern the hardest and the most important criminal acts of crimes against humanity (the defendants) were not found guilty,” Vučić told the press.
“There can be binding judgements, or non-binding ones, it’s all the same, Serbs will always be (war) criminals and all the others will be liberators and heroes, and everyone else will be allowed this, but the Serbs.”
Thaçi has maintained his innocence throughout the process, telling a Kosovo outlet in August that he expected a full acquittal.