Kosovo ex-president tried to 'eliminate' opponents, trial hears

Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci led a bloody campaign against opponents that resulted in more than 100 murders during the 1990s independence war against Serbia, the start of his war crimes trial heard Monday.  

Thaci and three other top members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebel group all denied 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity as they appeared at a special tribunal in The Hague. 

While Thaci and the others went on to be seen as guerrilla heroes, prosecutors said the ethnic Albanian KLA openly enforced a brutal reign of imprisonment, torture and killings to tighten their grip on power during and after the 1998-1999 war.

"These four men were without any doubt the principal leaders of the KLA and they have been celebrated and honoured for it," prosecutor Alex Whiting told the court.

"But there was a darker side to their leadership."

Thaci, wearing a blue tie and charcoal grey suit and listening through headphones, confirmed the plea he entered when he first appeared before the court in 2020.

"I’m fully not guilty," the 54-year-old Thaci told the tribunal.

His fellow defendants, former KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi, Thaci's closest political ally Kadri Veseli and key KLA figure Rexhep Selimi, also denied the charges.

Thousands of people rallied in Kosovo's capital Pristina on Sunday in support of Thaci, who resigned as president in late 2020 and handed himself into the court to face charges.

Dozens more Thaci supporters, many of them waving red and black flags, rallied in The Hague as the trial started at the EU-funded Kosovo Specialist Chambers Court. 

- 'Collaborators and traitors' -

Prosecutors said that Thaci and his co-defendants had a "clear and explicit policy to target collaborators and perceived traitors, including political opponents."

Victims were often targeted simply because of an association with Serbia, as Thaci's rebel KLA battled Serb forces for the independence of the southern province in a bitter conflict that claimed more than 13,000 lives.

But in their "zeal" to "eliminate" opposition, the majority of the victims were ethnic Albanians like the KLA, along with some Serbs and Roma, prosecutors said.

"This policy furthered by the accused targeted opponents for detention, abuse, torture and sometimes death," Whiting said.

"We intend to prove hundreds of detentions across Kosovo, usually under terrible conditions of abuse, and over 100 murders."

The KLA's methods were "not a secret at all" but were publicly endorsed by the group, added Whiting.

"The message was repeated again and again, a drumbeat that said political opponents posed an existential threat to the KLA and to Kosovo."

The men each face six counts of crimes against humanity and four counts of war crimes, including murder, torture, forced disappearances, persecution and cruel treatment. 

After a NATO air campaign finally forced the Serbs to withdraw, Thaci joined politics in Kosovo, where the KLA still dominates the political arena.

US vice president at the time, Joe Biden, hailed him as the "George Washington of Kosovo".

But prosecutors said that to this day there was a "climate of witness intimidation surrounding this trial" with witnesses facing threats to their safety.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was set up in 2015 after a 2010 Council of Europe report linked Thaci to organised crime during and after the war.

The high-security court operates under Kosovo law but is based in the Netherlands to shield witnesses from intimidation in Kosovo.

By Danny Kemp