Kosovo President Charged With War Crimes

Table of Contents

Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes

The Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) has said Kosovan President Hashim Thaci , Kadri Veseli, the former Chairman of the Assembly of Kosovo, and others suspects were “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” of Kosovar Albanian, Serb and Roma people.
Other charges include enforced disappearance, persecution and torture.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (KSC & SPO) is a court of Kosovo, located in The Hague (Netherlands)
The KSC was set up to try former members of the KLA.

Kosovo is a landlocked country in the Western Balkans with a population of more than 1.8 million
Ethnic Albanians and Serb
Ottomans
Serbia – First Balkan War in 1912-13.
After World War I – Kosovo was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was later named Yugoslavia(1929).
1974 – Socialist Autonomous Province within Serbia.
1990s- Resistance movement led by Kosovo Albanian leaders, whose main aim was to secure independence for Kosovo
1997 – emergence of armed resistance in the form of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Serbia launched a military campaign to crackdown against the KLA, which resulted in ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo.
10,000 people (mostly ethnic Albanians) died and over a million were driven away from their homes
The NATO intervened in 1999
The intervention forced Serbia to pull its troops out of Kosovo and cede control to the UN and NATO.

Thaci commanded fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1998-1999 war.
He was always more of a political commissar than a fighter, but he was a key figure in the Kosovo Liberation Army.
After the war, he became the prime minister in the provisional government of Kosovo from 1999-2000.
The Revenge Killings
After the ethnic Albanians returned to Kosovo, some elements of the KLA conducted revenge killings and abductions of ethnic Serbs and Roma as a result of which thousands of people belonging to these ethnicities fled their homes during the latter half of 1999.
In 2008, Thaçi declared the independence of Kosovo and became its first prime minister. (2008 – 2014)
In 2016 he was elected President of Kosovo.

Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.
While Kosovo’s status is recognised by the US and some countries in the EU, Serbia backed by Russia refuses to do so.
Serbia and Kosovo have been engaged in European Union-brokered negotiations since 2011 to normalise relations as a condition for bloc membership.

Indictment = an accusation
Though it reflects the SPO’s determination that it can prove the charges against Thaci beyond reasonable doubt.
It is now up to the judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) to review the indictment and decide if the case will go to trial.
Thaci and Vesli had repeatedly tried to undermine the work of the KSC