PRISTINA (Reuters) – Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci went on trial at the Kosovo war crimes tribunal on Monday accused of responsibility for killings of civilians during the 1998-99 uprising against Serbian rule when he was guerrilla commander.
Here are key facts about the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander who helped guide his ethnic Albanian-majority nation to independence and served as head of state before resigning to face a war crimes indictment.
* Born on April 24, 1968, Thaci embraced the Kosovo national liberation cause in his teens, becoming head of the students’ union at the University of Pristina before joining the large Kosovar diaspora in Switzerland in 1995, studying history and international relations in Zurich.
* Thaci returned from abroad and became one of the senior figures in the KLA, which emerged in 1997 to launch a guerrilla war for statehood, capitalising on disappointment with a decade of futile passive resistance to Serbian repression.
* At peace talks in Rambouillet, France in 1999, Kosovo’s Thaci-led delegation signed a Western-brokered proposal to end hostilities but Serbia refused to endorse the deal, and weeks later NATO launched a bombing campaign that drove Belgrade’s armed forces and security police out of Kosovo.
* With NATO peacekeeping forces ensuring calm and the United Nations overseeing steps towards democracy and rule of law, the tall, strapping Thaci won election as prime minister in 2007 after two failed attempts.
* In February 2008 Thaci proclaimed independence of the small Balkan country. Kosovo’s statehood has been recognised by more than 100 countries, mainly Western, but not by former master Serbia or Russia and China.
* In 2010, a two-year investigation commissioned by the Council of Europe issued a report accusing Thaci of involvement in an organised crime ring responsible for killing opponents and trafficking organs taken from murdered Serbs during and after the late 1990s uprising. He denied any wrongdoing.
* Under pressure from its U.S. and EU benefactors, Kosovo formed a special court in 2015 to look into allegations of war crimes by the KLA. To ensure immunity from political pressure and safety for witnesses, the court was based in The Hague and is staffed by international judges and prosecutors.
* The tribunal issued a war crimes indictment against Thaci in November 2020, prompting him to resign as president following four years in office and his transfer to the tribunal’s detention centre in The Hague.
* During his time as a KLA leader and Kosovo statesman, Thaci worked closely with many Western leaders. Joe Biden, when he was U.S. vice president, called him “the George Washington of Kosovo”, and Thaci was en route to a meeting at Donald Trump’s White House when his indictment was announced.
* Thaci and other former veterans of the late 1990s uprising continue to be idolised by Kosovars. Photos of Thaci and others facing similar charges in The Hague are displayed across the country with the inscription: “Heroes of War and Peace.”
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
