The trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci begins today (Monday) in The Hague, the Netherlands, before a special court, on charges of war crimes during the independence uprising from Serbia between 1998 and 1999.
Human Rights Watch welcomed the trial, and the director of the organization's office in Europe and Central Asia, Hugh Williamson, said: "It provides an opportunity after many years for the victims to find out what happened," and pointed out that impunity still prevails in the Kosovo conflict.
In 2020, the Specialized Chambers of the Kosovo Court charged Taqi with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including persecution, murder, torture, and enforced disappearance even after the fighting ended.
Taqi and 3 other defendants – all of whom were close associates in the former Kosovo Liberation Army and later in peacetime politics – pleaded not guilty to all 10 counts.
More than 13,000 people, most of them from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, are believed to have been killed during the uprising when the country was still a province of Serbia under then-President Slobodan Milosevic.
The trial – conducted by international judges and prosecutors – begins with opening statements from the prosecution, and is followed over the next three days by defense lawyers and a representative of the Kosovo War Victims' Council. Taqi, 54, resigned from the presidency shortly after he was charged and transferred to detention in The Hague.
The four are accused of participating in a joint criminal act and carrying out widespread or systematic attacks on civilians from Kosovo's Serb minorities, and Kosovo Albanian opponents of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The trial is expected to be long, as prosecutors have said in procedural conferences that they will need two years to present all evidence.
The Kosovo Specialized Chambers – which are based in the Netherlands and have international judges and lawyers – were set up in 2015 to deal with cases under Kosovo law against former KLA fighters.
The court was established separately from the United Nations Special Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which was also in The Hague, and tried and convicted Serbian officials for war crimes in the conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Milosevic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but he died in 2006 before he could be sentenced.
Okaz (Jeddah) @okaz_online