Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army are preparing to challenge their war-crimes convictions, while the prosecutors will also review the full judgment, including the four men’s acquittal on several counts of crimes against humanity.
The 58-year-old Thaci, and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army who fought Serb forces in the 1998-99 war, was convicted on four counts of war crimes: illegal and arbitrary arrest and detention, cruel treatment, torture, and murder.
Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the sentence of 25 years in prison, had denied all charges, as had the other convicted men. Rexhep Selimi received 13 years in prison, Kadri Veseli 18 years, and Jakup Krasniqi 25 years.
They were criminally responsible for the war crimes of arbitrary detention against 385 individuals, cruel treatment against 49, torture against 303, and murder against 96 individuals.
The victims, based on the judgment, included Kosovo Albanians perceived as opponents of the KLA, individuals alleged to be associated with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or Serbian authorities, and certain members of ethnic minorities, including a number of Roma and Serbs.
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Hague Court Finds Former Kosovo President Thaci Guilty Of War CrimesBut the September 16 judgment is not the end of the case.
Across the Balkans, all eyes are on what follows as tensions over the verdict simmer.
The verdict has resonated among Albanians across the region, where the KLA and the war in Kosovo remain politically and emotionally charged issues.
Kosovo is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian, while sizable Albanian communities also live elsewhere in the Balkans, including in neighboring North Macedonia and Montenegro.
The reaction to the verdict also comes amid longstanding calls by some for Kosovo to unite with neighboring Albania, an idea that has symbolic appeal among some ethnic Albanians but faces major political and constitutional obstacles.
Meanwhile, Serbia and many ethnic Serbs inside Kosovo have complained that the court did not convict the men on crimes against humanity against Serbs during the war.
Beyond Kosovo, the judgment is likely to reinforce rather than resolve competing narratives about the war.
Florian Bieber, professor of Southeast European History and Politics at the University of Graz, said reactions to verdicts by international courts have long reflected deeply divided views of the region’s recent history.
“Over the past 25 years, verdicts are often only accepted if they fit the national narrative and rejected if they don't,” he told RFE/RL.
Bieber said he expects Serbian nationalists to see the convictions as vindicating their views, while in Kosovo the verdict is already being rejected on the argument that it threatens the established historical record.
Meanwhile, the legal process is likely to drag on.
Speaking after the sentences were announced that same day, lawyers for the four men said they would appeal, a process that could take years.
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Thaci’s lawyer, Pierre-Richard Prosper, said the defense would challenge what he described as the court’s failure to properly consider evidence about how the KLA operated.
Prosper pointed to testimony from former NATO commander Wesley Clark, former US diplomat Christopher Hill, and former State Department spokesman James Rubin, arguing that they had described the KLA as a decentralized organization in which regional commanders exercised substantial authority.
“The court rewrote the history to say that this was an organized structure, and they put all the responsibility on Hashim Thaci. Now, this fight will continue,” Prosper said.
Prosper said the judgment effectively portrayed the KLA as a criminal enterprise and that NATO and the United States should examine the implications of such a portrayal.
But Iva Vukusic, a historian at Utrecht University who studies war crimes trials in the former Yugoslavia, said the judgment should be read much more narrowly.
“The criminal trial of this sort is always about individuals,” she said. “Particular people, particular victims, particular days. Particular crimes.”
The Trial Panel itself stressed that the case was not a judgment on the legitimacy of the KLA or Kosovo’s struggle for independence.
It found that Thaci, as a member of the KLA General Staff and head of its Political Directorate, was a key member in formulating and implementing the common purpose that entailed setting up detention facilities; identifying individuals perceived as opposing the KLA; arresting and detaining them; and, if necessary, killing them.
What Could Be Challenged On Appeal?
Nevenka Tromp, a former researcher at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said that one of the central issues on appeal is likely to be precisely the existence of the common criminal purpose itself, together with how the judgment differentiated the individual contributions of the four defendants.
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Hague War Crimes Trial Casts Shadow Over Kosovo's 18th Birthday Celebrations“Thaci and Krasniqi were found to have actively used their positions to enforce the criminal aspects of the common purpose, while Selimi's conviction rests on a materially different characterization -- a failure to prevent and punish crimes he had the authority and knowledge to act on, an omission-based finding rather than one of active enforcement,” Tromp told RFE/RL.
She added that a second possible ground concerns the evidentiary record itself, particularly reliance on witness statements taken many years after the events in question, which defense teams have contested in earlier proceedings.
Tromp also said that the appellate review in this system, inherited from the ICTY's jurisprudence, does not simply re-weigh the evidence; it concentrates on the application of law to the evidence and facts as found.
“The realistic expectation is an appeal that narrows the judgment at its edges -- which individual was linked to which specific crimes, whether particular victims were properly attributed to the common purpose.”
Under the Specialist Chambers’ rules, parties have 30 days from the written sentencing judgment to file a notice of appeal. The main appeal brief is generally due within 60 days after that.
Prosecutors Could Appeal Too
Specialist Prosecutor Kimberly West said her office would review the full judgment, including the six crimes-against-humanity charges that did not result in convictions.
The Trial Panel acquitted the four men on those counts after finding that prosecutors had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that there had been a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.
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Why The US Suspended A 'Strategic Dialogue' With Kosovo Before It Even BeganThat means the appeal process could move in two directions. While the defense will seek to overturn convictions or reduce sentences, prosecutors could challenge the acquittals and seek to revive charges rejected by the Trial Panel.
Tromp said a prosecution appeal could significantly increase what remains at stake.
“Reinstating some or all of the six counts would not be a minor adjustment; it would reopen the sentence itself, plausibly upward,” she said.
For Thaci, the appeal in the war crimes case will not be his only unresolved legal proceeding in The Hague.
He is also awaiting judgment in a separate case in which he and four others are accused of offenses against the administration of justice, including allegations related to interference with witnesses. Thaci has pleaded not guilty.