Trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi opens in The Hague

Hashim Thaçi, the resigning President of Kosovo, during his first appearance before a judge of the Kosovo Specialised Chambers Tribunal in The Hague on November 9, 2020. AP Photo/Jerry Lampen

Text by: Stéphanie Maupas Follow

5 min

Accused by the Prosecutor of the Special Court, the former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army and his three co-accused are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1998 and 1999 wars between separatist guerrillas and Belgrade army. Their trial opens on Monday 3 April.

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From our correspondent in The Hague,

The four men expected in the dock of the Special Tribunal for Kosovo were members of the staff of the KLA, the separatist guerrilla fighting against the power of Belgrade in the 1990s. Hashim Thaçi, "the snake" of his nom de guerre, was the political leader of the KLA. Like him, his co-defendants belonged to the organization's general staff. At the head of intelligence was Kadri Veseli, who later became a member of parliament. Rexhep Selimi was in charge of operations and Jakup Krasniqi was the spokesman.

The four men are accused of participating in "a criminal enterprise" with the aim of taking "control over Kosovo," the indictment reads. This formula shocked Pristina, where the Special Court does not have a good press. Adopted backwards by the Kosovar Parliament in August 2015, this court funded by the European Union and created at the instigation of the EU and the United States, is accused of wanting to put the Kosovar guerrillas on trial and denies it. In this trial, "criminal enterprise", a legal term that demonstrates the collective and planned nature of mass crimes, brings together a large number of officials, up to the head of zones. But only the highest officials, against whom it has been possible to gather sufficient evidence, are being prosecuted.

► Read also: Who is Hashim Thaci, president of Kosovo, former head of the KLA, accused of war crimes?

The hunt for the opposition

The 70-page indictment is a dive into the dark history of guerrilla warfare. He recounts that in parallel with the KLA's fighting against the Yugoslav forces of Slobodan Milosevic (at the time, Yugoslavia was only formed by Montenegro and Serbia, including the province of Kosovo), hundreds of men, Serbs, Roma or Kosovar Albanians, were arrested, imprisoned in schools, police stations, disused buildings, etc. and even in the bathroom or garage of private apartments. Detained, they suffered persecution, torture, cruel treatment, details the indictment.

According to the Prosecutor General of the Special Court, Alex Whiting, Kosovo Liberation Army "soldiers" were targeting Serb civilians, designated enemies. But the separatist army was also waging a war within a war. Kosovar Albanian civilians were also subjected to the worst, accused of being traitors to the independence cause, suspected of being spies in the pay of the Serbs, collaborators. Supporters of Ibrahim Rugova, who unlike the KLA leaders advocated non-violence against the Serb enemy, were also targeted.

The indictment alleges that all the men, victims of "arbitrary detention", had to live sometimes without care, with little food, without hygiene and sometimes without space, as at the Kukës metal factory in Albania. These prisoners were beaten with batons, iron bars, rifle butts... cut with razors, threatened with death and sometimes killed. Thus, in Vrban/Vërban, "a detainee had his nails removed with pliers," reads the document detailing the charges. There, "detainees were beaten all over their bodies with chains, sticks, rifle butts, planks, kicked, subjected to mock executions, and threatened with further violence and death." In Rahovec/Orahovac, a family of Serb residents was forced to leave Kosovo after several visits by KLA "soldiers" to their apartment.

Hashim Thaçi himself allegedly participated in the arrest of members of the Kosovo Shadow Parliament, affiliated with Ibrahim Rugova's LDK. They were reportedly beaten and imprisoned before being released. What this indictment says again is the families looking for their loved ones. In Likoc/Likovac, at KLA headquarters, when they saw one of their own taken for questioning, his family members were later "denied any information about his fate, received contradictory or misleading information and were threatened". According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 1,621 people are still missing.

No accusations of organ trafficking

The Special Court was established after a long process and following the investigation carried out at the request of the Council of Europe by Dick Marty. In this December 2010 report, the Swiss senator reported war crimes, but also organ trafficking, passing through a village in Albania, as suspected by the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla del Ponte. Following that report, an investigation was conducted, leading to the establishment of the Tribunal. But none of the six accused so far prosecuted is charged with such charges. The four former KLA leaders, who have become leading political figures in independent Kosovo, all voluntarily travelled to The Hague in November 2020 following their indictment to defend their war.

As an appendix to his indictment, the prosecutor listed nearly 500 victims. Some survivors will testify before the Special Court. The prosecutor intends to call more than 300 witnesses in this trial, which could last five to six years.

► Read also: War crimes in Kosovo: the "Tribunal of the last chance"

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