International · Priscilla Asante
Kosovo's former president jailed for 25 years over war crimes
Kosovo's former president, Hashim Thaci, jailed for 25 years after being found criminally responsible for war crimes following a trial in the Hague.
Thaci 58, was convicted by a panel of judges of murder, torture, cruel treatment and illegal detention, as top commander of the ethnic Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, KlA during the territory's violent break from Serbia in the 1990s.
The tribunal said that he was guilty of the murder of 96 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces by Kosovo Liberation Army forces during the conflict.
Thaci was also convicted for the arbitrary illegal detention of three hundred and 85 people, the torture of three hundred and three people, and the cruel treatment of about 50 people.
The court said, he had actively participated in and encouraged crimes. "The scale and nature of the crimes committed were very serious and the so-called intelligence on which many of these victims were arrested, detained and killed was little more than unverified rumors," says the presiding judge, Charles Smith.
Based on that information, victims were called and described as spies, collaborators and violently treated.
The American judge said that the trial was not about the legitimacy of the Kosovo Liberation Army or its ultimate goal of securing independence for Kosovo.
Thaci, who had denied the charges, stood in silence as he was convicted and sentenced. He will be able to lodge an appeal against the decision.
He was facing multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity alongside three other former high-ranking commanders of the KLA.
Prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers court in the Hague had asked for a maximum of 45-year prison sentence for Thaci and the other defendants, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, but they had all denied the charges.
Veseli was jailed for 18 years, Selimi for 13 years and Krasniqi sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The four were all acquitted on six charges of crimes against humanity because the judges’ said prosecutors were unable to prove that crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians.
The ruling was followed closely in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the 1998 to 1999 conflict and Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence remains a dividing force between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.
As the verdict was read out, a mass of people watching on a big screen booed and chanted, "Thaci, Thaci. Hundreds then marched across the town as riot police stood guard.
In The Hague, brief scuffles broke out between several hundred Thaci supporters and police when protesters tried to walk to the tribunal.