Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci sentenced to 25 years for war crimes
Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of war crimes committed during the 1998–1999 Kosovo War.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague convicted the 58-year-old former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, of crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention.
The tribunal found Thaci responsible for crimes involving the killing of 96 political opponents and people perceived as collaborators with Serbian security forces by KLA forces during the conflict.
The ethnic Albanian KLA fought Serbian forces for Kosovo’s independence in 1998 and 1999. The conflict ended following NATO intervention.
More than 10,000 people are estimated to have been killed during the war, most of them ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and is recognized by more than 100 UN member states, including the United States and most EU countries. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.