On 16 September 2026 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, based in The Hague, found Kosovo's former president Hashim Thaçi and three other senior former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guilty of war crimes. Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi were convicted of murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detention. Thaçi and Krasniqi received 25 years in prison, Veseli 18 and Selimi 13. The court acquitted them of crimes against humanity, finding it unproven that the acts were directed against a civilian population.

The defendants were senior figures of the KLA, an armed group that fought for Kosovo's independence from Serbia in 1998-1999. The judges found they shared a common criminal purpose: to target, detain and kill perceived KLA opponents. Between April 1998 and June 1999, they were held responsible for the arbitrary detention of 385 people, the torture of 303, the cruel treatment of 49 and the murder of 96, in Kosovo and northern Albania. The victims were Kosovo Albanians seen as opponents or collaborators, as well as Serbs and Roma.

The verdict follows years of work: the Specialist Chambers was set up in 2015, after a 2010 aCouncil of Europe report and a European Union (EU) investigation. Thaçi faces a separate case for alleged obstruction of justice. Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the ruling an important step toward justice for victims, but stressed that for most war crimes in Kosovo no one has yet been convicted, leaving accountability an open challenge.

By Arianna Pia Mazzariello