Kosovo's former President Thaci defends innocence ahead of Hague war crimes ruling

PRISTINA, Feb 18 - Kosovo's former President Hashim Thaci told judges at his war crimes trial in The Hague on Wednesday that justice cannot be served by "prosecuting the innocent."

Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army commanders are charged with persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearances of people during and shortly after the 1998-99 uprising that eventually brought independence for the Albanian-majority region from Serbia.

They deny all the charges.

"Justice for the victims cannot be honoured by prosecuting the innocent, reconciliation cannot happen through selective and ethnic-based prosecutions," Thaci said in his final comments to the court before the verdict, expected within three months.

Thaci, 57, described prosecution allegations that he and his co-accused masterminded a violent campaign to win political control of Kosovo as "untrue, utterly absurd and deeply offensive."

NO EVIDENCE: THACI LAWYERS

His defence team has said there is no evidence to directly link Thaci to any of the alleged crimes and that there was insufficient evidence to say he controlled other KLA commanders.

Last week, prosecutors sought a 45-year prison sentence for Thaci following a nearly three-year trial.

They say that in 1998 and 1999, more than 100 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces were killed and hundreds were abused in and around 50 detention camps run by the KLA.

Thaci and the three other defendants - former parliament speakers Jakup Krasniqi and Kadri Veseli, and former lawmaker Rexhep Selimi - were arrested in 2020 and sent to face trial at the special Kosovo war crimes court in The Hague.

During their last comments, the three men, whom the prosecution also demanded each receive 45-year prison sentences, denied all charges and demanded their release.

More than 13,000 people, mostly Kosovo Albanians, are believed to have died during the late 1990s insurgency, when Kosovo was a province of Serbia under then-President Slobodan Milosevic, whose troops violently cracked down on ethnic Albanians.

KLA leaders are seen by many in Kosovo as national liberation heroes. Thousands rallied in the capital Pristina on Tuesday in support of the former KLA commanders.

The court was set up in 2015 by the Kosovo parliament following a report by the Council of Europe that during the war, members of the KLA allegedly harvested organs from some captives while being held in Albania, mainly Serbs, and then killed them.

Kosovo accused Serbia of fabricating such information to smear KLA liberators. These accusations were never included in the indictments filed by the prosecutors. REUTERS