Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci has been found guilty of war crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Thaci, 58, is 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 says he is guilty of the murder of 96 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces by Kosovo Liberation Army forces during the conflict.
He is also convicted for the arbitrary illegal detention of 385 people, torture of 303 people and cruel treatment of around 50.
The court says Thaci “actively participated in and encouraged crimes.”
Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the conviction and the sentence, has denied all charges.
The 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.
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