Kosovo Guerrilla Chiefs’ Landmark Trial: What are the Charges?

On trial alongside Thaci will be Kadri Veseli, a former Kosovo parliamentary speaker and leader of Kosovo Democratic Party, PDK, Jakup Krasniqi, the chairman of the national council of the Social Democratic Initiative, NISMA party, and Rexhep Selimi, who was the head of the Vetevendosje party's parliamentary group of MPs at the time of his arrest.

The four former comrades-in-arms turned politicians are charged with the crimes against humanity of persecution, imprisonment, other inhumane acts, torture, murder and enforced disappearances, and the war crimes of unlawful or arbitrary arrest and detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder.

They are accused of being responsible for the crimes individually as members of a 'joint criminal enterprise', of bearing superior responsibility for the offences as leaders of the KLA, and of aiding and abetting the crimes.

The purpose of the joint criminal enterprise is described in the indictment as including "the crimes of persecution, imprisonment, illegal or arbitrary arrest and detention, other inhumane acts, cruel treatment, torture, murder, and enforced disappearance of persons".

These crimes, allegedly committed between at least March 1998 and September 1999, mainly against prisoners held at a series of detention facilities set up by the KLA in Kosovo and Albania, include criminal responsibility for nearly 100 murders.

The latest version of the indictment, filed by the prosecution in February, disclosed the names of some of the ethnic Albanian, Serb and Roma victims in the case, as well as details of alleged threats and pressure that the defendants exerted against the KLA's political rivals. It also revealed that the bodies of 12 Serb victims were found in a mass grave in 2005.