![\"Kosovo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/afp_6aaa6ae767f7-1789553383.jpg\")
Kosovo Albanians gather during a rally in Pristina on September 16, 2026 to call for an acquittal [AFP]<\/p>\nThe Kosovo war crimes tribunal has convicted former Kosovar President Hashim Thaci of four counts of war crimes committed during his country\u2019s war for independence from Serbia.<\/p>\n
Thaci, 58, was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison for \u200ccrimes, including murder, torture and illegal detention, committed as top commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the \u2060territory\u2019s violent break \u2060from Serbia in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in The Hague, Netherlands, said he was \u2060guilty of the murder \u2060of 96 political \u2060opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces by the KLA during the conflict.<\/p>\n
Thaci denied all the charges.<\/p>\n
Wearing a suit and tie, he stood in silence as Presiding Judge Charles Smith read out the sentence.<\/p>\n
Three former KLA senior commanders were also sentenced for several different charges.<\/p>\n
Jakup Krasniqi was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Kadri Veseli was given 18 years, including the time he spent in custody, and Rexhep Selimi was sentenced to 13 years, including the time spent in custody.<\/p>\n
The verdict stated that they would have the right to appeal.<\/p>\n
Kosovo Albanians gather during a rally in Pristina on September 16, 2026 to call for an acquittal [AFP]<\/p>\n
The four men were acquitted on six charges of crimes against humanity because the judges said the prosecutors failed to prove that crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians.<\/p>\n
\u2018Harmful to Kosovo\u2019<\/p>\n
The trial has been controversial within Kosovo as many Kosovan Albanians see the KLA and Thaci as revered figures because of their role in the 1998-99 independence war.<\/p>\n
Kosovo\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs Glauk Konjufca condemned the verdict as \u201cterrible and harmful to Kosovo\u201d.<\/p>\n
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted on social media to the verdict by releasing an illustration of The Hague with the Albanian word, \u201cMarre\u201d, which translates to \u201cshame\u201d or \u201cdisgrace\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Kosovo\u2019s capital, Pristina, thousands of people watched the reading of the verdict live on a huge screen and were stunned at the sentence. Some started shouting slogans in support of the KLA and Thaci.<\/p>\n
Serbia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Ivica Dacic called the verdicts a \u201cwarning\u201d to Pristina \u201cthat a fake state cannot be built on mass graves of murdered Serbs\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said that the conviction represents a \u201cclear, and albeit belated, confirmation of what Serbia and the Serbian people have been saying loudly for more than a quarter of a century \u2013 that the so-called KLA was a criminal and terrorist organisation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The KLA first emerged in the mid 1990s, but its armed operations intensified in 1997 and 1998.<\/p>\n
Serbian forces responded with several large police and military operations, leading to a full-blown war in 1999, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated of 13,000 people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.<\/p>\n
During the war, Thaci was one of the heads of the KLA\u2019s political and information directorate. Once the war ended, he became Kosovo\u2019s prime minister and foreign minister and then served as president from 2016 to 2020.<\/p>\n
Thaci resigned in November 2020, after he was indicted by the tribunal. He and the other convicted commanders were transferred to detention in The Hague in November of that year.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/reuters_6aaa7edd-1789558493.jpg\")
A supporter of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci reacts after he was found guilty of war crimes by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal, in The Hague, Netherlands, September 16, 2026 [Omar Havana\/Reuters]<\/p>\n
Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera\u2019s Sonia Gallego said the verdicts come as Kosovo is facing \u201cpolitical deadlock\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been repeated elections to try and get some form of stable government so they can get some kind of closer relationship with the European Union going, but there have been repeated blocks to that, and failures to form that government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just going to be another stumbling block on that path to stability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gallego also said the verdict \u201ccuts right to the bone\u201d for many Kosovar Albanians, who view Thaci as a heroic figure.<\/p>\n
\u201cClosure is not in the immediate future. There has already been a very angry response in Pristina from thousands of Kosovar Albanians there about this judgement,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt cannot be understated really how abject a decision this is for Kosovar Albanians who see Hashem Thaci as not just the country\u2019s former president, but also a symbol of Kosovo\u2019s liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all crimes seem to be treated equally by the courts\u201d said Jeta Xharra, the director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo, who told Al Jazeera that the day marked more injustice for the Albanian majority of Kosovo.<\/p>\n
\u201cSerbian forces were involved in the killing of over 10,000 civilians, many of them women and children, yet majority members of the Serbian forces have not been held accountable for these crimes. And today, we see very lengthy sentences handed down to four members of the KLA,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Xharra said that people in Kosovo could not forget the terror they had experienced before the war, when they were treated as second-class citizens simply because they belonged to a different ethnic group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis court was seen as a court trying one ethnicity only, Kosovo Albanians. While that is not how the war was in Kosovo, majority of the crimes were committed by Serbian forces. Of course, all victims must get justice but this particular court is making sure that one side only is being tried\u201d, she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kosovo war crimes tribunal has convicted former Kosovar President Hashim Thaci of four counts of war crimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3456,43,159329,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-898040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-europe","tag-headlines","tag-kosovo","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}