Former Kosovo president sentenced to 25 years for war crimes

THE HAGUE/PRISTINA — Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was found guilty of war crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday.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 the 1990s.The tribunal said 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.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, the court added.The court said 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, if necessary, killing them,” presiding judge Charles Smith said.Victims were held in inhumane conditions, beaten, kept in tiny cells and not given enough food or medical care, he added.Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the conviction and the sentence, had denied all charges.He can appeal the verdict.SUPPORTERS GATHER IN PRISTINA AND THE HAGUEThe ruling was closely watched in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the 1998-99 conflict and Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence remain a source of tension between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.Thaci remains a revered figure for many Kosovo Albanians, while the tribunal itself is deeply unpopular in Kosovo.In The Hague, brief scuffles broke out between several hundred Thaci supporters and police when demonstrators tried to walk...