Kosovo’s president resigns to contest war crimes charges at The Hague

Kosovo president Hashim Thaci addresses the nation as he announced his resignation to face war crimes charges in Kosovo capital Pristina on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020.

Credit: AP

President Hashim Thaci of Kosovo resigned from power yesterday after being told that he would face war crimes charges at The Hague.

Mr Thaci, 52, who was a guerrilla leader during Kosovo’s war for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s, has been accused of involvement in the deaths of nearly 100 people.

The Kosovan leader, who is regarded as a war hero by many Kosovans, said he intended to fight the charges at the court, which he attended in July for pre-trial questioning.

He said he had resigned from his role as Kosovo’s leader to "protect the integrity of the office of the president".

"I will not allow under any circumstances that I appear before court as the president of the Republic of Kosovo," he told a news conference in the Kosovan capital, Pristina.

He added: "We are a freedom-loving people and not vengeful. That is why no claim may rewrite history. Kosovo has been the victim. Serbia has been the aggressor."

Mr Thaci was indicted in the summer along with nine other former rebel leaders by a special Kosovo court based in The Hague, set up to try the alleged crimes of former ethnic Albanian rebel leaders.

Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci attends a ceremony of security forces in 2018

Credit: Reuters

The charges include murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture. Another defendant is Kadri Veseli, a former parliament speaker and an opposition party leader, who said he planned to travel to the Hague this week and was resigning from "all public political activities."

Mr Thaci was a commander known as "Snake" in the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war, in which an estimated 13,000 people died.  

He has described it as a "just" rebellion against Serbian repression and speaks of his continued pride in the KLA, calling it "the most sublime value of the Albanian nation."

The indictment, he said yesterday, was "the smallest price we have to pay for the freedom of our people." Exact details of the 10-count indictment against Thaci have not been released.

But in a statement earlier this year, the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office alleged that the men were "criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders."

At the time, the prosecutor’s office accused Mr Thaci and Mr Veseli of repeated efforts "to obstruct and undermine" the court’s work, including attempts overturn the legislation in Kosovo that created it.

The court was set up after a 2011 report by the Council of Europe, a human rights body. It included allegations that KLA fighters trafficked human organs taken from prisoners and killed Serbs and fellow ethnic Albanians.

After the war, Mr Thaci created the Democratic Party of Kosovo, and saw his popularity soar when he declared Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in 2008.

He has been foreign minister, deputy prime minister and prime minister, and now president since April 2016.