Hashim Thaci, the former president of Kosovo, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on September 16, 2026, after judges at a European Union-backed tribunal in The Hague convicted him of war crimes committed during his country’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) found Thaci, 58, guilty on four counts: murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detention. The court held him responsible for 96 killings of political rivals and of people believed to be helping Serbian security forces, along with the arbitrary detention of 385 people, the torture of 303 and the cruel treatment of 49. The victims, the judges said, were not taking part in the fighting when the crimes occurred.

Wearing a suit and tie, Thaci stood in silence as Presiding Judge Charles Smith read out the conviction and the sentence. Thaci has denied every charge. Both he and the prosecutors, who had sought a maximum term of 45 years, can appeal.

What the Judges Found

The court ruled that Thaci took a hands-on role in the offenses and urged them on as a member of a joint criminal enterprise pursuing a common plan, leaning on his rank and public standing to do so, and that he failed to investigate or punish abuses by fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). “The scale and nature of the crimes committed were very serious,” Smith said.

The intelligence behind many of the arrests, the judge said, “was little more than unverified rumours. Based on that information, victims were called and described as spies and collaborators and violently treated.” Smith, who is American, stressed that the case was not a verdict on whether the KLA’s cause was legitimate, nor on its goal of independence for Kosovo, at the time a province of Serbia.

Thaci was one of four defendants on trial; all were acquitted of six counts of crimes against humanity after the panel concluded prosecutors had not proved the crimes formed part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians. The three-year trial, heard by a panel of three judges, turned on the degree to which the men exercised top-level operational control over a KLA run from the center, and on whether the abuses added up to a pattern.

Three other former KLA leaders on trial alongside Thaci pleaded not guilty. Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi were sentenced to 25 years, 18 years and 13 years respectively, with the terms for Veseli and Selimi including time already spent in custody. Rodney Dixon, a lawyer for Veseli, said he would “mount a robust appeal to continue the fight to show Mr. Veseli’s innocence and to bring him home to Kosovo.”

From Commander to President

The KLA took shape in the mid-1990s and escalated its armed operations in 1997 and 1998. Serbian forces hit back with large police and military sweeps, and the war that followed killed an estimated 13,000 people and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. Both sides committed crimes during the fighting. Thaci, a co-founder of the group who went by the nom de guerre “Commander Snake,” headed the KLA’s political directorate.

Western governments courted him during and after the war. He was invited to the 1999 peace talks at Rambouillet in France, where he charmed diplomats, most notably then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and he came to be seen as the man who could steer Kosovo to statehood. When Kosovo proclaimed its independence in 2008, he took office as its inaugural prime minister, and he also served as foreign minister and was president from 2016 to 2020. He resigned in November 2020 after the tribunal indicted him, and was transferred to detention in The Hague that same month.

Anger in Pristina and The Hague

In Pristina, the capital, thousands followed the hearing on a giant outdoor screen and reacted with shock to the length of the sentence, with chants of “UCK” — the Albanian-language initials of the Kosovo Liberation Army — rising from the crowd. Hundreds then marched across the Kosovar capital, where dozens of riot officers were posted. Masked protesters later hurled stones at the perimeter wall of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) outside Pristina, breaking several windows. Kosovo police said contingency arrangements had been made with foreign peacekeeping forces should the protests turn violent, and the United States advised its citizens to avoid crowds.

In The Hague, hundreds of supporters massed in a park close to the courthouse and briefly clashed with Dutch riot police, who said on X that two people had been detained.

Former KLA fighters led thousands through a central square of Pristina on Friday, September 18. Many marchers wore military fatigues and waved KLA flags, and protesters accused the court of political bias and of relying on evidence supplied by Serbia.

Kosovo Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca condemned the outcome as “a terrible judgment for Kosovo, for our people and for our liberation war.” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama posted an image of a circle of barbed wire laid across a map of Europe with a single word, reported in Albanian as “Marre” — shame — and rendered by Reuters as “Unbelievable.” Specialist Prosecutor Kimberly West welcomed the ruling. “Certain individuals exploited those war circumstances to commit grave crimes, and it is to the credit of Kosovo that those individuals are now being held accountable,” she said in a statement.

For many Kosovo Albanians, Thaci is still a hero, and the court that convicted him commands little public support in Kosovo. He also faces separate charges of intimidating witnesses, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Closing arguments in that case ended on September 10, with prosecutors asking for six years. No verdict has been delivered.