Special Court verdict in service of Belgrade’s campaign against Kosovo

The verdict that the Specialist Chambers handed down against four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army has already become part of a political and diplomatic operation by Serbia against Kosovo. Belgrade is not treating the decision merely as a judicial event; on the contrary, it is placing it at the center of its diplomatic discourse, aiming to present it as evidence for the narrative it has been building for years against the KLA and the Kosovar state. At the same time, political analysts assess that Serbia may exploit this moment to intensify lobbying against Kosovo in the international arena and further question its international subjectivity.

Already, Belgrade has incorporated this decision into its own political language, portraying it as support for the claims that Serbia has continually directed at the KLA and Kosovo.

Serbian Minister Ivica Dačić has called the verdict “legal proof,” while President Aleksandar Vučić has linked it to Serbia’s accusations of crimes against Serbs in Kosovo.

In this context, university professors and political analysts warn that the consequences of the decision may go beyond the judicial sphere and be used by Belgrade at the international level as well.

Analyst Dritëro Arifi assesses that this decision could turn into a tool for Serbia and Russia in international forums, to build a political narrative against Kosovo and NATO’s intervention. According to him, the European Union does not understand the long-term effect this decision may have. He stressed that it is not merely a legal decision, but a fundamentally political one, because Russia and Serbia, in every bilateral or multilateral meeting and in every international organization, will argue that NATO bombed an independent state based on the idea of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’. Consequently, the question arises whether we are dealing with a state created precisely by that ‘joint criminal enterprise’.

University professor Emrush Thaçi, for his part, asserts that Belgrade has already started a new phase of the campaign for the derecognition of Kosovo, while the internal political dynamics in Serbia may give this issue an electoral dimension as well. He explained that Serbia is starting a campaign to withdraw recognitions from some states where they claim to have influence and hopes, although personally he does not believe much in its success. However, Thaçi highlighted that Kosovo’s diplomacy, government, and political parties must all mobilize together. According to him, this is the moment to join forces, not to see each other as enemies; they can be political opponents, but not enemies, because they all have a common goal: above all is the state of Kosovo.

According to university professors, for Kosovo, the challenge arising from this verdict is not merely legal. The decision is already being used in Belgrade’s political statements and could turn into another instrument of Serbian diplomacy against Kosovo.