Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci controlled ethnic Albanian guerrillas and should be sentenced to 45 years in prison for war crimes. This was stated by international war crimes prosecutors, reported "Reuters".
In 2020, a special Kosovo court, established in The Hague and with an international panel of judges and prosecutors, indicted Thaci on 10 charges related to the 1998-99 Kosovo war, which ultimately led to the region's independence from Serbia.
The court indicted him on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including persecution, murder, torture and enforced disappearance of people, among other things, during the Kosovo war. Thaci resigned as president shortly afterwards and was transferred to custody in The Hague.
The case against Haci, who is on trial alongside three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), is entering its final phase, with closing arguments from the defendants beginning today.
Prosecutor Kimberly West told the court that "the defendants committed crimes against their perceived opponents in order to seize control of Kosovo". She added that in 1998 and 1999, more than 100 political opponents and alleged collaborators with Serbian security forces were killed, and hundreds were mistreated in about 50 detention camps run by the KLA.
The 57-year-old Thaci, who served as prime minister, foreign minister and president of Kosovo between 2008 and 2020, and the other three defendants deny all charges.
According to prosecutors, Hashim Thaci and the other three KLA leaders waged a violent campaign targeting political opponents, as well as minority ethnic Serbs and Roma, in order to gain full control of Kosovo.
Most of the victims of persecution were members of Kosovo's 90% ethnic Albanian majority, the prosecution added.