"I claim with full responsibility that there will not be a single member of the KLA in The Hague." This sentence was spoken by Hashim Thaci on September 2, 1999, in an interview for NIN. At that moment, the war in Kosovo had ended less than three months earlier, Serbian forces withdrew, KFOR entered Kosovo, and Thaci quickly became a politician with whom presidents, state secretaries and the most influential Western diplomats spoke.
NIN then asked him if he feared that one day he might be sent to The Hague because of the actions of members of the KLA. Thaci replied that the KLA did not commit crimes against civilians and ended with a categorical statement that none of its members would end up before the Hague Tribunal.
Twenty-seven years later, Thaci is awaiting a verdict in The Hague.
HIGH RISK DECISION
The specialized chambers of Kosovo have scheduled the first-instance verdict for Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselji, Redžep Seljimi and Jakub Krasnići for September 16, 2026, at 10 a.m.
"The verdict against Hashim Thaci and other former leaders of the KLA, whether acquitted or convicted, will have an important political and symbolic significance for Kosovo. The key question will be whether the verdict will contribute to a greater sense of justice and reconciliation or will further deepen mistrust, division and political instrumentalization of the past", Belzim Kamberi from the "Musine Kokalari" Institute for Social Solicities from Pristina told "Vreme".
For Zoran Stijović, a retired employee of the State Security who lived and served in Kosovo at the time of the outbreak of the conflict, it is clear that the decision of the court in The Hague is objectively not and will not be just a legal event.
"Whatever it will be, it will have a strong political, psychological and historical resonance both in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as in Serbia and throughout the region. The court's decision, even though it is a first instance, will mean the opening of a new phase in which there will be a much more serious discussion than before about how independence was declared, who built it politically and on what basis, what is the cost of that process and where does political responsibility end and individual, criminal responsibility begins. According to everything I see and read these days, the verdict, whatever it is, will to be another missed chance for a more mature confrontation with the past and a new reason for deepening ethnic divisions", emphasizes Stijović.
Publicist Skender Ljatifi believes that, regardless of the decision of the court in The Hague, the political and intellectual circles of every republic of the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, should know that the true history of destruction, wars and crimes in the former Yugoslavia was written precisely by the independence of this court as an institution, and not by politicians, academics, and even participants in former wars in the former Yugoslavia.
"I think that the clearest message regarding the final decision of the court in The Hague these days was sent to Kosovo and Kosovars by the former Secretary General of NATO and proven friend of Kosovo - George Robertson, who clearly declared that 'the decision should be accepted as it is given,'" points out Ljatifi.
THE BIG JUMP IN RAMBUYET
Hashim Tači was born on April 24, 1968 in Buroja near Srbica/Skenderaj. He studied history in Pristina, and continued part of his studies in Switzerland. At the beginning of the nineties, he joined the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK), a structure from which many later members of the KLA came.
"Unlike the LDK of Ibrahim Rugova, the LPK represented a trend that did not rule out armed struggle and was one of the main political and organizational circles from which the structures of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) developed during the nineties," says Belgzim Kamberi. Already at that time Thaci became interesting for the state security authorities of the then Yugoslavia.
"He belonged to the younger generation of ambitious members from Drenica, who, due to family and clan ties, enjoyed the support of the inner core of the LPK leadership. Due to various circumstances, in 1994 he escaped arrest for participating in an armed attack on a police patrol in an ambush at a railway crossing in Glogovac, after which he left Yugoslavia illegally and continued his work within that organization in Albania and the countries of Western Europe," he tells "Vreme" Stijović. During the war, Thaci was a member of the Main Staff and one of the most prominent political representatives of that organization.
In illegal structures, he was known by the nickname Gjarpëri - Snake.
Thaci's subsequent political rise, one can say, begins at the negotiations in Rambouillet in early 1999. The Kosovo-Albanian delegation gathered people from the opposing political camps, and Thaci was elected its chairman.
It was a big political leap for a man who only a few years earlier was active in illegal structures.
Rambouillet brought him from the war leadership of the KLA to the international diplomatic scene.
In March 1999, the Kosovo-Albanian delegation accepted the agreement. Madeleine Albright later recalled that the Americans told Thaci that he should become a kind of Jerry Adams of the Kosovo process - the political face of a movement that is moving from armed struggle to institutional politics.
RISE AND FALL
Rambouillet became a turning point in his biography, but in the first and second parliamentary elections, Rugova's LDK convincingly defeated Thaci's PDK. Thaci, however, built PDK as the main political structure derived from the war wing of Kosovo-Albanian politics.
After Rugova's death, the balance of power changed. The PDK won the 2007 elections, and Thaci became prime minister.
He held that position on February 17, 2008, when Kosovo's independence was declared.
Later, he was one of the main Kosovo negotiators in the dialogue with Serbia and participated in the talks that led to the Brussels Agreement in 2013.
After the prime minister's mandate, he was the first deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, and in 2016 he was elected president of Kosovo.
Thus, through the KLA, Rambouillet and international diplomacy, a man who was active in an illegal movement in the early nineties reached the highest political position.
The political fall of a man who was at the very top of Kosovo's government for almost two decades happened suddenly.
The specialized prosecutor submitted the indictment against Thaci and others for confirmation in April 2020. The public found out about her in June, just as Thaci was preparing for another political meeting under American patronage.
He was supposed to take part in talks organized by the administration of Donald Trump with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, in Washington. The release of information that an indictment had been filed against him cut short that diplomatic plan and Thaci abandoned the trip.
That moment had a strong symbolism. The politician who had direct access to Washington since Rambouillet and who for years was considered one of the most important American partners among the Kosovo Albanians could no longer count on his political status to stop proceedings before an institution strongly supported by the United States.
The indictment was confirmed on October 26, 2020. On November 5, Thaci resigned as President of Kosovo. On the same day, he was arrested and transferred to the detention unit of the Specialized Chambers in The Hague. Four days later he appeared in court for the first time and pleaded not guilty. In just a few days, the president of Kosovo became a prisoner.
The trial began on April 3, 2023. The prosecution finished its presentation of evidence in April 2025, the evidentiary proceedings ended in December of the same year, and the closing arguments were held in February 2026. 156 victims participated in the process.
It is now up to the judges to decide whether the prosecution has proven his individual criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt.
WHAT IS THACI ACCUSED OF?
Thaci is not on trial because he was a member or political leader of the KLA, but because of the prosecution's claim that he is individually criminally responsible for crimes against people who were considered opponents by the KLA structures.
Thaci, Veselji, Seljimi and Krasnić are charged with six counts of crimes against humanity: persecution, imprisonment, other inhumane acts, torture, murder and enforced disappearance. There are also four counts of war crimes: illegal or arbitrary arrest and deprivation of liberty, cruel treatment, torture and murder.
Thaci denied all the charges. His defense contested the claim that the KLA was a strictly centralized structure through which its political elite could control all local units and argued that Thaci's high positions cannot automatically infer his criminal responsibility.
Behind the legal formulations of persecution, imprisonment, torture, murders and enforced disappearances are various groups of people described by the prosecution as real or perceived opponents of the KLA.
Among them were Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians, but also Kosovo Albanians who were suspected of cooperating with the Serbian authorities, of not supporting the KLA or of belonging to political structures that were in conflict with it.
Thaci's statement to NIN that "there will not be a single member of the KLA in The Hague" did not stand the test of time for long.
Several former members and commanders of the KLA appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the outcomes of those proceedings were different.
In the case related to the Lapusnik camp, Haradin Bala was found guilty of war crimes in 2005 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In the same case, Fatmir Ljimaj and Isak Musliju were acquitted.
Even more significant for the comparison with Thaci was the case of Ramush Haradinaj, who was the Prime Minister of Kosovo at the time of the indictment in 2005. Haradinaj resigned and voluntarily went to The Hague. He was acquitted at first instance in 2008, and after the Appeals Chamber ordered a partial retrial, he was acquitted again in 2012.
New convictions followed before the later established Specialized Chambers. Saljih Mustafa was found guilty of war crimes against Kosovo Albanians in Zlaš, while Pjeter Šalja was convicted of war crimes against detainees in Kukesh.
The previous Hague proceedings therefore show that both convictions and acquittals were possible. They do not determine the outcome of the Thaci process.
However, Thaci's case has a special political weight: the former political leader of the KLA, chairman of the delegation in Rambouillet, long-term prime minister and former president of Kosovo is on trial.
The verdict on September 16 will not just be an event in one courtroom in The Hague. In Kosovo, Tači, Veselji, Seljimi and Krasnići are not only seen as four defendants. They belong to a generation whose political legitimacy is directly linked to the KLA and the 1998-1999 war.
For this reason, the conviction could additionally strengthen the claims of veteran organizations and political structures derived from the KLA that the liberation war itself is tried indirectly before the Specialized Chambers.
However, such an interpretation is not the same as what the court decides on. The court does not determine whether the KLA as a whole was a criminal organization, nor does it decide on the legitimacy of the goals of the Kosovo Albanians. He decides on the individual criminal responsibility of the accused.
An acquittal would have the opposite political effect. Thaci's supporters would almost certainly present it as confirmation that the top of the KLA was unfairly accused. But even an acquittal by itself would not mean that the crimes described in the indictment were not committed. It could mean that it has not been proven that these four are criminally responsible for them according to the standard that the court must apply.
For international actors, this separation is crucial. The US and the European Union have for years supported the Specialized Chambers as an instrument of individual responsibility and the rule of law. Therefore, the eventual conviction of Thaci would not automatically mean a change in the American or European attitude towards Kosovo's statehood, the NATO intervention from 1999 or the KLA as a whole. But it would have a strong historical effect.
WHAT IS THE VERDICT?
A man who was accepted as a political interlocutor by the Western powers in Rambouillet, who immediately after the war spoke with the president of the USA and who later became the prime minister and president of Kosovo, can be declared individually responsible for serious crimes committed in the period from which his political power arose.
In The Hague, the judgment will speak about the individual responsibility of the accused. In Kosovo, it will inevitably be read as a judicial response to a part of the legacy of the generation that moved from the KLA to the very top of the state.
Did the prosecution prove that Hashem Thaci was individually responsible for the persecution, imprisonment, torture, murder and enforced disappearances he is accused of – or did the defense manage to show that the connection between his political and military functions and the crimes on the ground was not enough for a conviction? The initial response should be known on September 16, 2026.
So, twenty-seven years and fourteen days after Hashim Thaci said: "I declare with full responsibility that there will not be a single member of the KLA in The Hague."
