Kosovo leader resigns to face war crimes trial
PRISTINA, Kosovo — President Hashim Thaci, a guerrilla leader during Kosovo’s war for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s, resigned Thursday and was sent to a special court in The Hague, where he’ll be tried on charges ofwar crimes and crimes against humanity.
Thaci said he decided to relinquish his post “to protect the integrity of the presidency of Kosovo” and to preserve the historical truth of which side was the perpetrator, and which the victim, in the conflict that killed more than 10,000 people.
“We are a freedom-loving people and not vengeful,” Thaci, 52, said at a news conference in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. “That is why no claim may rewrite history. Kosovo has been the victim. Serbia has been the aggressor.”
The court confirmed his arrival in The Hague late Thursday and released a redacted version of his indictment, which initially was filed in April and confirmed by a judge Oct. 26, a decision that likely precipitated the timing of the president’s resignation.
It describes Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army commanders who also are nowin The Hague to face charges as members of a “joint criminal enterprise” set up “to gain and exercise control over all of Kosovo by means including unlawfully intimidating, mistreating, committing violence against, and removing those deemed to be opponents” from March 1998 to September 1999.
The indictment charges Thaci along with Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi. All four will appear in court for the first time in coming days.
Veseli is a former parliament speaker and an opposition party leader who said he was resigning fromhis political activities before he was flown to the Netherlands.
Thaci said he was proud to have belonged to the KLA, calling it “the most sublime value of the Albanian nation.”
He called the indictment “the smallest price we have to pay for the freedom of our people.”
Thaci and the others “shared the intent for the commission of each of the crimes” with other members of the joint criminal enterprise, the indictment said. They each face 10 charges including murder, torture, enforced disappearances and persecution.
The indictment listed several cases of illegal detention and mistreatment of prisoners by KLA fighters, including vicious beatings and electrocutions and the murder of many others.
Announcing the indictment earlier this year, the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office alleged that the men were “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders.”
The four suspects are charged based on their alleged membership in a joint criminal enterprise and as commanders of fighters who carried out the crimes.
The indictment was filed by an international prosecutor linked to a special Kosovo court based in The Hague that was set up five years ago to investigate and try former ethnic Albanian rebel leaders over alleged war crimes.