The former president of Kosovo was found guilty of war crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention by a war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday. Hashim Thaci orchestrated the murder of dozens of political opponents and had more than 300 people tortured.
Kosovo is an Albanian-speaking country that was once part of Yugoslavia, and is not far from Greece. Many Serbs once lived in Kosovo, but 100,000 Serbs were driven out of Kosovo as it became effectively independent from Serbia. A majority of the ethnic Serb population fled or was expelled from Kosovo amid a wave of revenge attacks and violence. Other non-Albanian minorities such as Romani were also driven out.
Earlier, Serbia had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, which Serbia then controlled. Serbia systematically mistreated ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from 1989-1999.
After Serbian troops were kicked out Kosovo in 1999, Thaci set up an oppressive government that mistreated the Serbian ethnic minority, and killed more of his opponents — not just Serbs, but also some Albanians.
Hashim Thaçi was famously accused in a 2010 Council of Europe report of leading a criminal network involved in harvesting and trafficking human organs. The report, authored by Swiss investigator Dick Marty, alleged that during and immediately after the 1998–1999 Kosovo War, members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) took Serbian and opposition captives into neighboring Albania, executed them, and sold their kidneys on the black market.
Kosovo effectively became independent in 1999, but formally became independent of Serbia only in 2008.
A news report notes that
Hashim Thaci, 58, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes committed as top commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the territory’s violent break from Serbia in 1998-99.
The ruling was closely watched in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the conflict and Kosovo’s later declaration of independence in 2008 remain a source of tension between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.
It was criticized as too harsh in Kosovo, and Thaci supporters briefly scuffled with police in The Hague.
Thaci was found guilty of the murder of 96 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbia during the conflict.
He was also convicted for the arbitrary illegal detention of 385 people, torture of 303 people and cruel treatment of 49 people. None of the victims were active participants in hostilities at the time the crimes were committed….Thaci had actively participated in and encouraged crimes as part of a joint criminal enterprise with a common plan.
“The plan was as simple as it was harmful. In particular, it entailed: setting up detention facilities in all areas controlled by the KLA; identifying individuals perceived as opposing the KLA; and arresting and detaining them and…killing them,” presiding judge Charles Smith said.
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