Former Kosovo president sentenced to 25 years in prison by special tribunal for war crimes during conflict

[Brussels Current Affairs] On the 16th, a special tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, sentenced former Kosovo President Thaci (58) to 25 years in prison on charges including war crimes over the Kosovo conflict in the former Yugoslavia at the end of the 1990s. The three people who were also indicted were also sentenced to between 2013 and 2025. Prosecutors had asked for 45 years in prison for the four men.

At the time of the conflict, the four were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian armed group that aimed for Kosovo's independence from the former Yugoslavia. The special court found four people criminally responsible for the murders of 96 people considered to be opposed to the KLA, as well as the detention and torture of hundreds of others. All were found guilty of four war crimes.

On the other hand, many of the victims were individually targeted for reasons such as their opposition to the KLA, and all of them were acquitted of the six charges because they did not meet the requirements for crimes against humanity.