Hague Court Publishes Details of Hashim Thaci’s Alleged War Crimes

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague has published a less redacted version of the indictment of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who goes on trial with three other Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA ex-officers next month, giving more details of the war crimes and crimes against humanity charges against them.

The latest version of the indictment, filed by the prosecution on February 27, also discloses the names of some of the ethnic Albanian, Serb and Roma victims in the case, as well as details of alleged threats and pressure they exerted against the KLA's political rivals.

Thaci will go on trial in The Hague on April 3 alongside Kadri Veseli, a former Kosovo parliament speaker and leader of Kosovo Democratic Party, PDK, Jakup Krasniqi, the former chairman of the national council of the Social Democratic Initiative, NISMA party, and Rexhep Selimi, the former head of the parliamentary group of what was the biggest opposition party at the time, Vetevendosje.

The indictment alleges that as part of a "joint criminal enterprise", the four men committed war crimes and crimes against humanity between at least March 1998 and September 1999, and bear criminal responsibility for nearly 100 murders.

The indictment says they sought to stamp their control over Kosovo "by means including unlawfully intimidating, mistreating, committing violence against, and removing those deemed to be opponents".

It alleges that as senior figures in the KLA guerrilla force, they had "superior responsibility" which makes them complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity because they were allegedly aware of violations but did not take action to prevent criminal acts or punish the perpetrators, or they directly participated in the crimes themselves...

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