Almost five years after the arrest of former Kosovan president Hashim Thaçi on charges of war crimes during the independence war against Serbian forces, his trial in The Hague has entered a decisive stage.

With the prosecution having presented its evidence over the past two years, the defence has now begun to call witnesses in an attempt to secure freedom for the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Protests erupted the day before Thaci’s lawyers started presenting his defence, reflecting the emotional and political resonance of the trial among Kosovo Albanians, many of whom continue to view Thaçi and other KLA leaders as heroes of the independence struggle.

Around 5,000 protesters gathered near the Specialist Chambers in The Hague to show their support for Thaçi and fellow former KLA leaders Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, who are standing trial alongside him. Participants came from Albania, Kosovo, the wider Balkans, the United States and several European countries. Many were veterans, carrying banners with slogans such as “Justice knows no delays” and “Freedom has a name”. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama expressed solidarity online.

The charges

Allegations that former KLA members committed crimes against Serbs, Roma and “disloyal” Albanians following the withdrawal of Serbian forces in 1999 originate from a 2010 report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty. The report accused KLA members of involvement in abductions, summary executions and organ trafficking.

An estimated 10,000 people were killed during the conflict, while around 1,700 remain missing. Adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 2011, the report urged the EU to launch an investigation into “war crimes and organ trafficking” in both Kosovo and Albania.

According to a 2010 BBC report, dozens of people abducted by the KLA — mainly Serbs — were allegedly taken to a so-called “yellow house” near Burrel in central Albania between June 1999 and May 2000, where their organs were reportedly harvested and sold.

The indictment against Thaçi and his co-defendants was first confirmed in October 2020 and has since been amended several times. It charges them with six counts of crimes against humanity, including persecution, imprisonment, torture, murder and enforced disappearance, and four counts of war crimes such as arbitrary detention and cruel treatment.

The alleged crimes span the period from March 1998 to September 1999 and were said to have been committed in multiple locations across Kosovo and in northern Albania. The prosecution claims that civilians and individuals perceived as opponents of the KLA were targeted as part of a systematic campaign.

Thaçi, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi were arrested in November 2020 and transferred to the Specialist Chambers’ detention facilities in The Hague. Their trial opened on April 3, 2023, with the prosecution closing its case in April this year after presenting 125 witnesses in person and admitting 137 witness statements in writing. Victims’ representatives, speaking on behalf of 155 registered victims, presented their case in July 2025.

The defence is now expected to run until mid-November, with the panel of judges setting November 14 as the indicative closing date for testimony, although this may change depending on developments.

Thaçi has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Witness for the defence 

The first defence witness to appear on September 15 was James Rubin, a former US assistant secretary of state and one of the closest associates of former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright during the Kosovo conflict of the late 1990s.

Speaking later in an exclusive interview with Klan Kosova, Rubin, who personally knows Thaci, said that he had not spoken to him for five years. “I saw him in the courtroom and he was full of dignity,” Rubin was cited as saying.

Rubin made clear his personal position: he hopes to see Thaçi free soon, calling the trial “a terrible chapter in Kosovo’s political history” and describing the accusations against him as “false”.

Rubin contended that the charges were flawed, arguing that the KLA lacked a vertical chain of command through which Thaçi could issue orders, and that responsibility, where it did exist, lay mainly with former KLA general Agim Çeku—later Kosovo’s prime minister—and other field commanders, not Thaçi.

“I don’t think the idea that there were orders from the top for anything is real. If you believe that, it’s wrong. It wasn’t Thaçi, it was General Çeku or other commanders,” he said.

Other defence witnesses for Thaçi were John Duncan, a former UK diplomatic service officer, Paul Williams, who served as an adviser to the Kosovo delegation during the failed Rambouillet peace talks in 1999, and Jock Covey, ex-deputy chief of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

In the meantime, the Specialist Court said that after answering questions from the trial panel, Covey, the latest in a series to testify, concluded his testimony on October 2. The proceedings have now been adjourned and are set to resume on October 27.

The Kosovo conflict

To understand the significance of the trial, it is essential to recall the origins of the Kosovo conflict. At the time, Kosovo was an autonomous province within Serbia, itself a republic of the former Yugoslavia. The province’s population was overwhelmingly Kosovo Albanian, mostly Muslim, who had long complained of discrimination under Serbian rule, the Serbs being predominantly Orthodox Christian.

By the late 1980s, tensions had intensified after Slobodan Milošević’s government in Belgrade revoked Kosovo’s autonomy and imposed direct control. In response, Kosovo Albanian political leaders demanded independence. When peaceful efforts failed, armed resistance emerged in the form of the KLA, which carried out attacks on Serbian police, officials and infrastructure.

Serbia’s security forces responded with a heavy hand. From 1998 to 1999, the conflict escalated into open war, with massacres, mass displacement and widespread human rights abuses. Around 13,000 people were killed, the vast majority of them Kosovo Albanians, and nearly 1mn were forced to flee their homes.

The brutality of the conflict drew international attention. After failed peace talks at Rambouillet in France, Nato launched an air campaign against Serbia in March 1999. The 78-day bombing ultimately forced Belgrade to withdraw its forces from Kosovo. The province was placed under UN administration, and in 2008 it declared independence, a move still contested by Serbia and not recognised by several countries.

During Nato’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, Milošević was indicted by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes related to the conflicts in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. He was found dead in his cell at The Hague detention centre on March 11, 2006.

Who is Thaci?

Thaçi was one of the most visible leaders of the KLA during the war and became a key political figure afterwards. He was widely known by his nickname, “the Snake”. Popular accounts suggested that he earned the title for his ability to evade Serbian police and security forces. 

However, one of his former teachers, Zymber Hasani, has offered a different origin story. According to Hasani, Thaçi first acquired the nickname in his youth, during a biology class at school. Unlike his classmates, he showed no fear when confronted with a live snake and boldly picked it up with his hand. “That’s how he got the name ‘Snake’,” Hasani told local media.

Thaçi studied philosophy and history at the University of Pristina and later continued his studies at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. At the time, he was active in Kosovar political groups and co-founded the People’s Movement of Kosovo, a predecessor of the KLA, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force seeking independence from Yugoslavia. At the time, he was also accused of ordering the assassination of rival political and military figures in Kosovo and was sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison by the District Court of Pristina in July 1997. Following the sentence, Thaçi fled to Western Europe.

“He could have lived quietly between Paris and Zurich, but instead chose the path of freedom,” Thaci’s political adviser Ismail Syla recalled on Facebook in 2020.

Thaçi played a direct role in Kosovo’s war of independence against Serbian forces. He joined the KLA in 1993 and served as its political director from 1994 until the conflict ended in 1999. During the war, media reports claimed the KLA, under his leadership, financed its operations through illegal activities, including drug trafficking to Western Europe. Allegations of organ trafficking have also been linked to the organisation.

In a speech shared on his Facebook page in 2020, Thaçi described his appearance at The Hague tribunal as fulfilling his “civic and institutional duty”, adding: “Kosovo's freedom is sealed by the blood of those who fell for Kosovo's freedom.”

Following the conflict, Thaçi transitioned into politics. He led the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) from 1999 until 2016 and held key government positions, including foreign minister, first deputy prime minister, and was Kosovo’s first prime minister from January 2008 to December 2014. He was elected president in February 2016 and officially assumed office in April 2016.

Years after his arrest, the PDK remains one of the largest political forces in the country. The party emerged from the demilitarised KLA and was initially positioned as a social-democratic party, led largely by Albanian nationalists and former members of the People's Movement of Kosovo. The PDK has been in opposition since 2019, when the Vetevendosje movement, led by acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti, came to power.

Uncertain outcome

Thaçi’s legacy remains sharply divided. Supporters see him as a symbol of Kosovo’s independence struggle, transforming the KLA from a guerrilla force into a political movement. Critics point to allegations of organised crime, ruthless power struggles and violent repression.

The Specialist Chambers, based in The Hague but part of Kosovo’s legal system, were created under international pressure to bring accountability for alleged KLA crimes. For many Kosovars the trial feels imposed from outside, while victims’ groups see it as long overdue.

Over the past two years, more than 125 witnesses summoned by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office have testified in the trial against former KLA leaders accused of taking part in a “joint criminal enterprise” that allegedly targeted perceived “collaborators” and “traitors” in a bid to consolidate power during and after the Kosovo war, Radio Free Europe reported in April 2025.

“Thaçi's trial ‘should have happened earlier’, victims' families say”, was a headline of an article published by Kallxo on June 28, 2020. According to the article, relatives of Serbs killed or missing since the 1998-99 Kosovo war said they hoped the trial of Thaçi would finally bring them truth and justice. More than two decades after losing their loved ones, many still hold high expectations.

One interviewee, Silvana Marković, whose husband was abducted in June 1999, in the town of Gračanica, was cited as saying that Thaçi and his associates “must finally start answering for the crimes committed against Serbs.”

On the other hand, members of the PDK believe Thaçi will soon be exonerated and released from prison. Speaking at a pre-election campaign event in Drenas, Thaçi’s hometown, PDK secretary Vlora Çitaku was quoted by Gazeta Blic last week  as saying: “I am more convinced than ever that Hashim Thaçi will be in Kosovo in the spring of next year.”

As the defence calls its witnesses, the stakes in the trial are extremely high. For Thaçi, the verdict means either prison or freedom; for Kosovo, it will shape the contested memory of its war of independence and its standing abroad.

The trial also seeks to redress the imbalance in how war crimes have been prosecuted in the Balkans. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, also based in The Hague, convicted Serbian leaders including Milošević, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, but until now no senior Kosovo Albanian figures had faced judgment. The KLA is now under unprecedented scrutiny as part of an effort to answer claims that justice was one-sided.