By Fatos Bytyci
PRISTINA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci will on Wednesday hear the verdict from a war crimes tribunal on charges over his role in a conflict to gain independence from Serbia in the 1990s.
Here are some key facts about the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander who went on to serve as prime minister and head of state before resigning in 2020 to face a war crimes indictment, including allegations of overseeing the killing of civilians. Thaci denies wrongdoing.
– 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.
– Before and during the war, he frequently travelled clandestinely in and out of Kosovo, earning the nickname “The Snake” for his ability to evade Serbian police and military forces.
– At peace talks in Rambouillet in France in 1999, Kosovo’s delegation led by Thaci signed a Western-brokered proposal to end hostilities, but Serbia refused to endorse the deal. Weeks later, NATO launched a 78-day bombing campaign that drove Serb forces out of Kosovo.
– With the end of the war, Thaci formed the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the main faction to emerge from the ranks of the KLA, and became prime minister of a provisional government. After elections in 2001, the PDK entered government with Thaci’s party deputy, Bajram Rexhepi, as prime minister.
– With NATO peacekeeping forces ensuring calm and the United Nations overseeing steps towards democracy and rule of law, the PDK won a parliamentary election in November 2007 and parliament confirmed Thaci as prime minister in January 2008.
– In February 2008, Thaci proclaimed independence from Serbia. Kosovo’s statehood has been recognised by more than 100 countries, mainly Western, including the United States, but not by Serbia, Russia or 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 wrongdoing. The prosecution never brought any case on the alleged organ trafficking.
– Thaci was elected president in February 2016 and took office the following April.
– Under pressure from its U.S. and European Union benefactors, Kosovo formed a special court in 2015 to look into allegations of war crimes by the KLA. The tribunal issued a war crimes indictment against Thaci in November 2020. He resigned and was transferred to the tribunal’s detention centre in The Hague.
– Thaci, who is married with a son, continues to be idolised by Kosovars. Photos of him 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 Edward McAllister and Timothy Heritage)
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