Former Kosovo President Thaci sentenced to 25 years in prison for war crimes
The Special Court for Kosovo, established in The Hague, on Wednesday, September 16, sentenced former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci to 25 years in prison for war crimes committed by Kosovo guerrillas in the 1990s.
A panel of international judges of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers found Hashim Thaci guilty, in particular, of "unlawful detention, torture, murder and cruel treatment."
"The Chamber sentences you to a single sentence of 25 years of imprisonment, with credit for the time already served in pretrial detention," presiding judge Charles Smith said as the verdict was announced.
More than three years after the start of the first-instance trial, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers found 58-year-old Hashim Thaci, the former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), guilty of crimes committed by that guerrilla group during the war against Serbian forces and immediately after the end of the conflict — in 1998 and 1999.
The prosecution had requested 45 years in prison for the former president. The maximum penalty provided for by this special court, created by the European Union and Kosovo, is life imprisonment.
