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PARIS —Nearly a quarter-century after Kosovo's brutal war for independence, its former president and guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges Monday, as a trial kicked off in the Netherlands that some believe could impact a recent deal to normalize relations between Pristina and its longtime nemesis Serbia.
Wearing a dark pinstripe suit, 54-year-old Thaci appeared at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers with three other defendants, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, who also pleaded not guilty.
All are former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and face multiple counts of war crimes and crimes-against-humanity charges for allegedly enforcing killings, torture and imprisonment during and after the 1998-1999 conflict against then-Yugoslavia. The war ended after a NATO air campaign drove Serbian forces out of Kosovo.
"These four men were without any doubt the principal leaders of the KLA, and they have been celebrated and honored for it. But there was a darker side to their leadership," said prosecutor Alex Whiting, accusing Thaci and the other defendants of furthering a policy of "detention, abuse, torture and sometimes death."
Analysts and rights activists hailed the trial for bringing some accountability for months of brutality on both sides - even as they called on Serbia to address its share of war crimes gone unexamined and unpunished in a war that killed more than 13,000 people, most of whom were ethnic Albanians.
"It's been 24 years since this conflict, but there's still a need for justice. There's still a legacy of impunity that hangs over this conflict," said Liz Evenson, international justice director for Human Rights Watch.
The defense begins arguing its case Tuesday. In an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) last week, defense lawyer Gregory Kehoe argued Thaci, and his fellow defendants, were "freedom fighters" not war criminals - a characterization Kosovo's former Foreign Minister Petrit Selimi agrees with.
"He was a political leader of the type of [former Sinn Féin President] Gerry Adams and [former South Africa President] Nelson Mandela and others who have had a history of fighting against overwhelming odds, in conflicts which were rife with ethnic and other types of divisions," Selimi said of Thaci, telling VOA that his trial was a "sad day" for Kosovo.
Praise and dark accusations
Like other KLA members, Thaci is considered a hero by many of Kosovo's majority Albanian population. Ahead of the trial, thousands rallied in his support in Kosovo's capital Pristina and in The Hague. While the Specialist Chambers is a Kosovo court - established under western pressure - it is deeply unpopular for its mandate of trying former KLA members for war and postwar crimes.
"Don't equate victims with the criminals," one protester's sign read, referring to Serbia.
Like lawyer Kehoe, Selimi characterized the KLA as a hodgepodge group of Kosovars fighting against oppressors without a clear line of command - suggesting its leaders couldn't be held accountable for potential crimes committed by others.
"I think it's fair to say that the Kosovo Liberation Army was a group of ragtag militias from villages with no real generals and no real tanks, fighting what was the very organized army of Slobodan Milosevic," Selimi said of the Serbian former leader, who died while on trial at a separate war crimes court in The Hague.
Thaci joined the KLA and was one of the group's senior figures when it emerged in 1997 to wage a guerrilla war for statehood. A 78-day campaign of NATO airstrikes aimed at Serbian forces finally ended the fighting in 1999.
In 2008, Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia and Thaci became its first prime minister. In 2016, he was elected president, before resigning in 2020 after being indicted by the special court.
Along with praise - then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden reportedly called him the "George Washington of Kosovo" - Thaci has been dogged by accusations, including alleged links to an Albanian group involved in smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs, according to a 2010 Council of Europe report.
Imperil Kosovo-Serbia deal?
The Hague trial comes just two weeks after Kosovo and Serbia struck a verbal agreement to implement a new Western-backed plan to normalize long-acrimonious ties. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo; nor do some other countries, including Russia, China and several EU member states.
Some believe simmering anger among Kosovar Albanians over a perceived one-sided accountability for the war could imperil the agreement's fate - especially as the EU deal calls on Pristina to take the first step in guaranteeing a degree of "self-management" for Kosovo's minority-Serb population.
"It's clear that if we go forward and if there are more steps to be taken in normalizing [Kosovar-Serbian relations] - and then on the other hand we have this [trial] in The Hague, which is only focusing on one side - it actually might create some sort of hindrances for the peace process itself," said Kosovo's ex-foreign minister Selimi.
Balkans expert Edward P. Joseph calls the normalization deal important but "flawed and ambiguous."
"Potentially, the deal offers Kosovo a way to break out of the status quo, but there are real risks," said Joseph, a former deputy head for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's mission in Kosovo.
Kosovo was giving up its leverage, he said, hoping - with U.S. and EU support - for reciprocal action from a Serbia that "remains in denial about the past."
"The Hashim Thaci trail is complicated, because it is Kosovo that is asked to make the first move," Joseph said.
The stakes are high, he believes, not just for Kosovo and Serbia. Both Russia and China have interests in the region. Moscow has drawn parallels between NATO's 1999 campaign in Kosovo and the transatlantic alliance's current support for Ukraine.
"The geopolitical context makes it imperative for the U.S. and EU to see this agreement work," Joseph said. "If it fails, they won't be able to say, 'it's the failure of Serbia and Kosovo.' No. It will be the failure of the U.S. and the EU - and the cost will be paid by the U.S. and the EU. And it will be a victory for Russia and China."