On Wednesday, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague found former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi guilty of war crimes, including killings, torture and unlawful detention of people. Reuters reports, UNN writes.
Details
Thaçi, 58, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes committed as commander-in-chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which consisted mostly of ethnic Albanians, during the violent separation of the region from Serbia in the 1990s.
The court said Thaçi was guilty of the killing of 96 political opponents and people considered to be collaborators with Serbian security forces, carried out by Kosovo Liberation Army forces during the conflict.
He was also found guilty of the arbitrary unlawful detention of 385 people, torture of 303 people and cruel treatment of 49 people. The court added that none of the victims was actively participating in hostilities at the time the crimes were committed.
The court said that Thaçi actively participated in and encouraged the crimes as part of a joint criminal enterprise based on a common plan.
The plan was as simple as it was destructive. In particular, it provided for: the creation of detention facilities in all areas controlled by the KLA; the identification of people considered opponents of the KLA; their arrest and detention and, when necessary, their killing
According to him, the victims were held in inhumane conditions, beaten, kept in tiny cells and not provided with sufficient food or medical care.
Thaçi, who stood silently while the judge read out the verdict and sentence, denied all the charges.
He may appeal the verdict.
Supporters gathered in Pristina and The Hague
The verdict was closely followed in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the 1998–1999 conflict and Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 remain sources of tension between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.
Thaçi remains a respected figure for many Kosovo Albanians, while the tribunal itself is extremely unpopular in Kosovo.
Brief clashes occurred in The Hague between several hundred Thaçi supporters and police when demonstrators tried to march to the court from the place where they had been listening to an audio broadcast of the verdict announcement.
In Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, several hundred people marched through the city after the verdict was announced, while dozens of police officers from riot-control units were deployed throughout the city.
"This verdict is shameful. From today, there will be no peace in Kosovo," said Raif Pllana, a former KLA fighter who came to support Thaçi in central Pristina.
Police said that, in case the protests turned violent, a joint action plan had been prepared with foreign peacekeeping forces. The United States urged its citizens to avoid areas where large crowds were gathering.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama criticized the verdict, posting on social media an image of a map of Europe wrapped in barbed wire and writing one word: "Incredible."
Prosecutors sought 45 years in prison
Prosecutors sought 45 years in prison for Thaçi and three other former senior KLA commanders.
However, the three-judge panel dismissed six charges of crimes against humanity. The judges said prosecutors had failed to prove that these crimes were part of widespread or systematic attacks against the civilian population as a whole.
Thaçi’s lawyers argued that the charges were unfounded and effectively represented an attempt to rewrite history.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, based in The Hague, were established in 2015 under international pressure to hear cases against former KLA fighters accused of war crimes and crimes committed after the war.
On Wednesday, the judges said that the trial had taken place against a backdrop of serious witness intimidation. They also referred to witnesses who had withdrawn their previous testimony, lied to the court or changed their earlier statements.