An international tribunal in The Hague has found former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander and later Kosovo President Hashim Thaci guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
The 58-year-old Thaci, and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army who fought Serb forces in the 1998-99 war, was convicted on four counts of war crimes: illegal and arbitrary arrest and detention, cruel treatment, torture, and murder.
Judge Charles Smith said the men, widely regarded as national heroes in Kosovo, had been engaged in a "common criminal purpose" that involved arbitrary detention of at least 385 people at locations in Kosovo and northern Albania under KLA control.
Some 348 detainees were subjected to cruel treatment and 303 to torture, the court ruled. This included pulling out people's nails, breaking their limbs, and subjecting them to mock executions.
The court found the defendants guilty of 96 cases of unlawful killing. The victims had taken "no active part in hostilities."
The verdict was roundly condemned in Kosovo, where Prime Minister Albin Kurti called it an “unacceptable injustice." In Washington, a State Department spokesman told RFE/RL "we urge all parties to respect the court’s decision."
Detailed Atrocities
The judgement provided gruesome details of the crimes committed.
"One detainee held in Lapushnik recounted that when KLA members beat one of his co-detainees, the co-detainee pleaded with the soldiers, saying, 'Give me a bullet, don't have me suffer like this,' to which one of the soldiers responded, 'There is no bullet for you, we will take your life little by little,'" Smith told the courtroom.
The judgement described how the KLA identified and detained its opponents often on the basis of "unverified rumors" to consolidate their control over Kosovo during the period of April 1998 to August 1999. The detainees were accused of being collaborators, spies, and traitors.
They were tortured and mistreated in school buildings, cowsheds, and basements, Smith said, adding that some survivors endured long-term depression or were no longer able to walk due to their mistreatment.
For those who did not survive, death was not the end of their mistreatment, the court heard.
"Many of the murder victims' bodies were found in a condition that involved further outrage upon their dignity," Smith said. He described one case where a family learnt of a victim's death from a media report before finding the mutilated body by a roadside.
"The bodies of some murder victims were never found, thus further contributing to the pain of surviving relatives," Smith said.
The convicted men's ultimate aim was to secure power in Kosovo after independence by eliminating political opponents, the court ruled.
Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the sentence, had denied all charges, as had the other convicted men. Rexhep Selimi received 13 years in prison, Kadri Veseli 18 years, and Jakup Krasniqi 25 years.
All four men had "significantly contributed to the common criminal purpose," Smith said. This included, he said, both encouraging the crimes and participating in them.
A Brutal War
The KLA emerged in the mid-1990s, after years of peaceful resistance by Kosovo Albanians to the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
From small guerrilla groups, it grew into a force fighting against ethnic Serb and Yugoslav troops. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians were driven from their homes in the conflict, raising the specter of a repeat of the ethnic cleansing practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some 13,000 people were killed or went missing.
In March 1999, NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslav targets, leading to the withdrawal of Yugoslav and ethnic Serb forces. Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
"This case is not about the legitimacy of the Kosovo Liberation Army and its goal of independence for Kosovo. This case is not concerned with weighing the responsibilities of one side against those of the other," Smith said.
But in Prishtina, the verdict was met with protesters marching through the streets chanting "KLA, KLA" in support of the four convicted men.
"This is a catastrophic judgment, against the Albanian nation," a man in military uniform who said he had been a soldier told RFE/RL's Kosovo Service.
Crowds had watched Smith delivering the verdict on big screens erected across the country.
Later, a group of people ignored calls for calm from politicians and pelted the building of the European Union's civilian peacekeeping mission in Prishtina with stones before marching toward the main government building.
Police in the Hague had to use a water cannon to clear the area around the court after Thaci supporters began protesting. The unrest was quickly quelled.
Kosovo's Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, called the verdict an “unacceptable injustice and a severe and harmful punishment." He said the convictions must be overturned in an appeal process "as soon as possible."
Ramush Haradinaj, a former KLA leader and later Kosovo Prime Minister, said the verdict was "unacceptable, unjust," adding "the KLA fought a just liberation war."
In 2019 Haradinaj also appeared at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the international court set up to hear cases relating to the 1990s conflict, but was not formally indicted.
Thaci's lawyer, Richard-Pierre Prosper, called the verdict a “travesty of justice” and said the outcome was predetermined. Prosper said the defense would appeal but that it could take years for the process to reach conclusion. He called on Kosovo's parliament to stop cooperating with the Specialist Chambers.
The US State Department told RFE/RL it respected the judgement and urged all parties to do so, too. A spokesman said they should "avoid inflammatory rhetoric and continue working toward a peaceful, democratic future."
Serbia’s outgoing Interior Minister Ivica Dacic claimed the convictions were "confirmation" that the KLA was "a criminal and terrorist organization.”
The court, however, made no such ruling.
"This case concerns the acts and conduct of the accused," Smith said.
