German Daily FAZ: The Penultimate Word on Thaçi and a Historical Fact — the War Against Serbia Was Inevitable and Just

The conservative German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) notes in a commentary that the Kosovo Specialist Court’s verdict against former Kosovo rebel leader Hashim Thaçi was legally only the penultimate word. An appeal process remains open.

However, given the state of the evidence, it seems right and fair that Thaçi has now been convicted, FAZ writes. At least based on the current level of knowledge, it seems unlikely that an appeal would end in acquittal.

Whether the 25-year prison sentence stands in reasonable proportion to the sentences for Serbian war criminals should also be debated in light of history.

The verdict must not lead to a blurring of the historical dimensions of the events in Kosovo in 1999. The conflict was fueled by the Greater Serbia policy of the Belgrade ruler, Slobodan Milošević, who died in 2006. Serbian security forces committed incomparably greater crimes than those attributed to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

For this reason, the court did well to emphasize that neither Kosovo Albanians, nor the KLA and its war for independence, were on trial in The Hague. Because that war, in the face of Serbian oppression, was as inevitable as it was just.