Hague-based judges convicted four former KLA leaders but acquitted them of crimes against humanity, separating individual responsibility from Kosovo’s independence struggle.
Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaçi has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after judges convicted him and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders of war crimes committed during the 1998-1999 conflict. The first-instance judgment covers arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder, while acquitting the defendants of crimes against humanity. All four retain the right to appeal.
Four convictions and four prison sentences
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers found all four defendants criminally responsible for the arbitrary detention of 385 people, cruel treatment involving 49 people, the torture of 303 and the murder of 96.
Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi each received 25-year prison sentences. Kadri Veseli was sentenced to 18 years and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years. The court ordered that time already spent in detention be credited against their sentences.
The judges concluded that the defendants contributed to a common criminal purpose aimed at people perceived as opponents of the KLA’s political or military objectives. Those targeted included Kosovo Albanians associated with rival political and military groups, people alleged to have links with Serbian or Yugoslav authorities, and members of ethnic minorities, including Roma and Serbs.
According to the judgment, most of the victims had not participated in hostilities or presented a legitimate security threat. People labelled as collaborators or spies were detained without due process, physically and psychologically abused, intimidated or killed.
The panel found that Thaçi, then a member of the KLA General Staff and head of its Political Directorate, helped formulate and implement the policy. Judges also found that he personally participated in the arrest and detention of 13 parliamentarians and in the arrest, transfer and murder of Behajdin Allaqi.
The defendants had pleaded not guilty. Their sentences and convictions can be challenged before a separate appeals panel, meaning Wednesday’s ruling does not conclude the legal process.
What the judgment did not decide
The panel acquitted all four men of crimes against humanity. Prosecutors had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that the offences formed part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, the judges found. The defendants were also acquitted in relation to several specific alleged war-crime incidents.
This distinction matters. A conviction for serious wartime offences does not automatically establish every broader charge brought by prosecutors. The burden remained on the prosecution to prove each legal element and each defendant’s responsibility beyond reasonable doubt.
Presiding Judge Charles Smith also stressed that the proceedings were not a judgment on the legitimacy of the KLA or Kosovo’s pursuit of independence. Nor did the case determine responsibility for the extensive crimes committed against Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces and paramilitary units.
That limitation does not place one community’s suffering above another. It reflects the narrower function of a criminal court: deciding whether specified defendants are individually responsible for offences established through admissible evidence.
Witnesses faced sustained pressure
The trial began in April 2023 and involved evidence from 273 witnesses. Judges admitted 5,467 exhibits, while the transcript ultimately exceeded 29,000 pages. A total of 156 victims participated through legal counsel.
The panel described a persistent climate of witness intimidation. Some prosecution witnesses withdrew earlier accounts, avoided basic details, repeated apparently learned statements or gave evidence the judges considered untruthful. Others testified despite efforts to discourage them.
This finding exposes one of the central difficulties facing post-conflict justice in closely connected communities. Witness protection is not merely an administrative concern. When people fear social exclusion, retaliation or violence, courts can lose access to evidence and victims can be denied an effective path to justice.
A politically charged ruling
Thaçi remains a major figure in Kosovo’s recent history. He represented the KLA during international negotiations, later served as prime minister and became president. He resigned from the presidency in 2020 after the indictment against him was confirmed.
For many Kosovo Albanians, the four defendants remain associated with liberation from Serbian rule. Thousands rallied in Pristina before the judgment, carrying Albanian flags and demanding their acquittal.
The Specialist Chambers are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but sit in The Hague and are staffed largely by international judges and personnel. Kosovo established the court through a constitutional amendment and legislation adopted in 2015. Its unusual structure was intended to permit sensitive cases to be heard outside the country’s intensely pressured political and security environment.
The judgment arrives amid continuing disputes across the Balkans over courts, wartime memory and the public treatment of former military leaders. Those tensions were also visible in the recent controversy over proposed state honours for Ratko Mladić, whose genocide and war-crimes convictions remain legally established.
Accountability loses credibility when it is applied only to adversaries. Equally, the prosecution of crimes committed by KLA members cannot be used to erase the systematic violence inflicted on Kosovo Albanians or to deny their right to dignity and political self-determination.
Victims remain at the centre
The appeal process will determine whether the convictions and sentences withstand further judicial scrutiny. Until then, the defendants retain their procedural rights, including the right to challenge errors of fact, law or procedure.
For survivors and relatives of those killed, however, the ruling already provides formal recognition that civilians and perceived political opponents were subjected to grave abuses. The enduring measure of the proceedings will be whether they protect witnesses, respect defence rights and establish responsibility without turning justice into another instrument of nationalist division.
