“The charges do not stand. I am completely innocent”, Hashim Thaçi told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in The Hague on February 18, as his nearly three-year trial closed. “Throughout my life, I stood with the people of Kosovo, defending freedom, life and dignity. I was always guided by the Western ideals of democracy, equality and justice”. He demanded that the judges acquit him.
Thaçi and the three other accused delivered their final statements in front of a full public gallery. The four former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity that include persecution, imprisonment, torture and murder.
Tears and KLA t-shirts
Over 200 people requested access, according to the KSC spokesperson, compared to the 67 seats available. Around two dozen Kosovar journalists filled the media centre, competing for space to report live. Outside the court, a group of men tried to get last-minute entry. One wore a t-shirt with “Freedom has a name” and the logo of the KLA printed on it. In the public gallery, the family and friends of the accused, as well as Kosovo politicians, pressed forward as Thaçi and his co-accused walked into the courtroom. A general murmuring echoed as they tried to wave at them. The guards called to order, and a dead silence filled the gallery for Thaçi’s 20-minute-long speech. Some brought their heads to their hands, some wiped tears from their eyes.
In its closing statements on February 9, the Specialist Prosecutor Kimberly West demanded a 45-year sentence for each of the accused. The prosecution argued that the KLA had a well-structured chain of command and the accused were part of a joint criminal enterprise whose purpose was to control all of Kosovo, and that they committed crimes against perceived opponents to achieve that aim. According to the prosecutors, they bear individual and command responsibility for the murders of more than 100 people and the abuse of hundreds more in detention camps in Kosovo and northern Albania, from at least March 1998 through September 1999.
Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi were all high-ranking figures of the KLA who went on to become prominent Kosovo politicians. Thaçi served as prime minister, foreign minister and president of Kosovo between 2008 and 2020, when he resigned to defend himself before the Court. The alleged crimes occurred in the context of the 1998-99 ethnic Albanian war for independence from Serbia, which ruled over the region. Most of the 13,000 people who died in the war were ethnic Albanians. Another million were driven from their homes.
18th anniversary of Kosovo independence
On the eve of the Court’s closing statements, thousands of people rallied in Kosovo’s capital Pristina in support of Thaçi and the other former fighters, as the country marked the 18th anniversary of its independence.
The Kosovo Court was set up in 2015 by the Kosovo parliament under pressure from the country’s western allies to handle ex-KLA fighters. “We have entrusted this institution to the European Union, and we deem that now is the appropriate time when they have to guarantee that the fundamental rights of the accused, but also the fundamental integrity of justice must be protected”, Kosovo Ambassador to the Hague Dren Doli told Justice Info after the hearing, which he attended next to his Albanian counterpart. He argued the prosecution’s “version of the truth” has “huge discrepancies with the reality of what has happened in Kosovo during the war”.
“It’s ordinary, legitimate, military stuff”
During their closing statements and final words, all defence lawyers asked for their clients’ acquittal. On February 11, Thaçi’s lawyer Luka Mišetić denied any criminal conduct: “This nearly three-year trial was a test of the prosecution, and the prosecution has failed. Mr Thaçi’s presumption of innocence remains”. Speaking after him, Veseli’s counsel Rodney Dixon called the prosecution’s case a “wild goose chase”. Dixon said that of the 260 times Veseli is mentioned in the prosecution’s final brief, besides a “handful of unsupported allegations”, there is no evidence of “him doing anything criminal or unlawful. It’s ordinary, legitimate, military stuff”.
During their final remarks on February 18, Geoffrey Roberts said with both hands on the stand that for every allegation against his client Selimi, “the prosecution’s case has been found wanting”. Then Aidan Ellis, Krasniqi’s lawyer, argued that there is no evidence that Bislim Zyrapi, whom the defence describes as the chief of the KLA general staff, was subordinate to his client.
“The only person who was making plans was Milosevic”
“At the beginning of 1998, I was a student at the University of Zurich. I was not making plans for how to take control of Kosovo. I was making plans to prepare for my exams”, Thaçi told the judges in a firm voice. “The only person who was making plans was Slobodan Milosevic. Plans for a new genocide in Kosovo”. He said that seeing the massacres happening in Kosovo, he decided to come back in the spring of that year. “The prosecution claims that the purpose was to gain and exercise control over Kosovo. This is not only entirely untrue and utterly absurd, but it’s also deeply offensive”, he said in Albanian. “I did not return and risk my life for control or for power. I returned to my homeland, risking my life for freedom and for peace.”
Thaçi said that cooperation with the West was key to getting freedom. “They helped us precisely because they were aware of who we were and what our aims were. I would not put at risk this alliance at no price under no circumstances because in doing so I would have imperilled Kosovo’s very freedom”. Thaçi referred to the scrutiny that the West did of their military conduct. “The only power I had was the power of my voice”, he added, explaining that he used it “to promote a multi-ethnic and tolerant society in my country”. Thaçi also dismissed claims that Kosovo Albanian fighters harvested organs as “Russian and Serbian propaganda”.
Justice for a “just war”
Standing up next, Veseli said that while growing up in Kosovo, he and his family “lived constantly under persecution by the Serb state”. Standing up straight, he spoke without hesitation. “I was a student when the autonomy of Kosovo was abrogated and when the university was attacked by Serbian forces”, he recalled. After leaving for Switzerland in search of a “normal life”, Veseli returned to Kosovo in early 1998, as the attacks by Serbian forces increased. “There is no evidence indicating that I have committed any crime”.
In his address, Selimi said the prosecution’s requested sentences of 45 years is “extraordinarily harsh” and “so long that they effectively aim to permanently prevent us from returning to our own country”. Veseli, who had saluted his friends and family, intertwining fingers to create the Albanian eagle, the KLA symbol, looked repeatedly towards the public gallery. “These five years have not been easy for us, nor have they been insignificant for the history of our country. Nevertheless, let all of this serve as a good opportunity for justice”. He said he hoped the judges understood that the KLA war was “just”. He argued the prosecutor wanted to equate the two sides: “The KLA war of liberation cannot be equated with a murderous state of Serbia”. Selimi said that was “an attempt to rewrite history”.
“A human story shaped by hope and necessity”
Standing up last, Krasniqi said that “the unfairness of this case is written into the indictment itself”. The 75-year-old argued in a slow and measured voice that he is not the figure described by the prosecution: “I did not possess the power, the command or the functions that this case attributes to me”. He continued saying that Kosovo has “never sought the destruction of another nation, ethnicity or religion. We fought only for life, freedom, democracy, equality, and justice, not to control territory for domination, for greed, or criminal gain. Our purpose was to return Kosovo to its people, all of its people”. He concluded that the evidence speaks not of “a criminal enterprise but a human story shaped by hope and necessity”.
The accused’s words marked the end of seven days of closing statements. Speaking on February 11, Thaçi’s defence lawyer Luka Mišetić told the judges that the prosecution failed to meet “its high burden of proof”. An audible scoff reverberated through the semi-full public gallery as Mišetić said that “reviewing the prosecution’s final submissions is like reading a movie review written by someone who didn’t watch the movie”.
In the prosecution’s case, the policy of targeting opponents was said to be actively implemented through public statements and communiques, argued Mišetić. So that they could be “readily available” to those who monitored Kosovo at the time, such as former chief spokesman for the US State Department James Rubin and ex-NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Wesley Clark. But both, who came to testify for the defence, did not see “an incitement to crime or a common criminal purpose”, underlined Mišetić. “Did it take 20 years for the international community to discover the nationalist propaganda of the Bosnian Serbs and the Milosevic regime? Of course not”.
Documentary evidence does not implicate Thaçi either, according to the defence. “There are no general staff orders in which detention and mistreatment of so-called opponents is suggested. There are no orders in the record from Thaçi to perpetrators of crimes. There are no reports from perpetrators of crimes to Thaçi”. Mišetić said that there is “no credible evidence” that Thaçi authored communiques, nor that “any KLA communiques significantly contributed to any of the crimes charged in the indictment”.
Mišetić also rejected the idea that there was command, control and joint criminal enterprise involving the general staff to take over Kosovo. He referred to the testimonies of senior KLA officials, and focused on the 2024 testimony of Bislim Zyrapi, who testified that he was not aware of “a general staff policy to target collaborators or any involvement of Hashim Thaçi in any such policy”. For most of the indictment period, Zyrapi was the head of operations and the chief of the general staff of the KLA, said Mišetić.
During its statements, the prosecution discussed some key incidents allegedly involving Thaçi directly. One was the arrest, detention, and intimidation of 13 members of a parliamentary delegation who were on a humanitarian visit to Qirez/Cirez. The defence said that the detention was not part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians, but rather an exception because “the KLA had military reasons to stop the delegation and question its members”. He said the fighters feared that the delegation came unannounced to encourage surrender, and that on other occasions, they allowed other political visits.
Another key allegation involves the detention of two Serbian journalists. According to Mišetić, they were only detained because they were seen as potential combatants. The lawyer said that one of the two was a known Serb paramilitary from the Croatian and Bosnian wars and an alleged armed smuggler.
Mišetić finally rejected the prosecution’s view that Thaçi tried to seize control through his position as Prime Minister in the provisional government of Kosovo. He said the government was created following Western demands. The defence continued that there is no evidence that Thaçi was directly in charge of appointing people and inciting crimes, nor that he had real control over the wave of violence and retaliation that took place in the summer of 1999, when the Serbs were forced by NATO to withdraw their military.
“The prosecution asks you to rewrite the history”
“The prosecution effectively asks you to tell the world that you are going to rewrite the history of the Kosovo war based almost exclusively on inference”, Mišetić told the judges, as people in the public gallery nodded and prosecutor West looked across seriously, one hand against the table. “There is no direct evidence supporting their allegation of a common criminal purpose”, he concluded.
The judges will now have at least 90 days to issue a verdict. The trial started in April 2023 and has seen 130-plus witnesses testifying over the course of 227 hearings, with written statements by over 130 more witnesses. 155 victims are currently taking part in the case.
