French Daily Le Monde: Thaçi Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison – Court Challenged Over Use of Evidence From Serbia

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi has been sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Special Court in The Hague for war crimes committed during the war in Kosovo in the 1990s.

Thaçi, who was one of the key figures of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was found guilty of a series of criminal offenses linked to the armed conflict.

The verdict against him was announced on Tuesday in The Hague, after a trial that lasted several years.

The court also sentenced three other former KLA leaders. Jakup Krasniqi was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Kadri Veseli to 18 years, while Rexhep Selimi to 13 years in prison, Le Monde writes.

The case against the four former KLA leaders relates to charges of crimes committed against persons considered opponents of the KLA during and after the war in Kosovo.

The Special Court was established in 2015 and is headquartered in The Hague, while its mandate relates to alleged crimes committed by KLA members during the war period.

Thaçi was one of Kosovo’s key political figures after the war and served as the country’s president from 2016 until his resignation in 2020, when the indictment against him was confirmed.

A contested court

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), although headquartered in the Netherlands and composed of international judges, were established under Kosovo law to prosecute alleged crimes committed by KLA members during the war.

Before this court’s creation, earlier cases handled in Kosovo had largely failed to succeed, due to claims of witness intimidation and political interference.

The court, which has been deeply unpopular in Kosovo since its founding, has also faced accusations of political bias, particularly over the use of evidence secured from Belgrade, which still does not recognize the independence of its former province.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors sought to distinguish between Kosovo’s war for independence and the persons on trial. According to them, the four former leaders bear responsibility for crimes committed against detainees in KLA detention centers in Kosovo and neighboring Albania, as well as for politically motivated killings of Serb, Albanian and Roma civilians.

The crimes are alleged to have been committed during and immediately after the war in Kosovo, in which around 13,000 people lost their lives.

On the other hand, lawyers for the former KLA leaders have argued that the Kosovo Liberation Army did not have a strict command structure and that senior figures had no way of controlling fighters who committed crimes. /Telegrafi/