Albanian President Bajram Begaj has reacted to the verdict sentencing Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

In his reaction, the head of state expressed deep sadness over the verdict announced today, while describing the determination to appeal it as a strong stance of integrity and resilience.

“Today’s decision brings deep sadness.

The determination to appeal the verdict demonstrates strong integrity and resilience. For Albanians, nothing and no one can tarnish the KLA!

Freedom has a name,” Begaj wrote.

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This Wednesday, in a post on the social network Facebook, Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted to the decision in The Hague concerning the former KLA leaders.

Rama wrote: “Shame.”

Decisions:

– Kadri Veseli was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

– Jakup Krasniqi was sentenced to a total of 25 years. Below is the judge’s statement.

– Kosovo’s former president, Hashim Thaçi, was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

– Rexhep Selimi was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

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The Hague Special Court has sentenced four former KLA leaders to a total of 81 years in prison. Specifically, Hashim Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi received 25 years each, Kadri Veseli was sentenced to 18 years, and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years.

The former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army were convicted of war crimes, including unlawful or arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and unlawful killing.

Meanwhile, as the verdict was delivered, protests erupted on the streets of Pristina, with chants against Serbia.

Tearful and grieving citizens were seen in the square and streets of Pristina, as the atmosphere grew tense.

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The Chief Judge of the Trial Panel, Charles L. Smith, said that there were no crimes against humanity by the four KLA leaders. “With regard to the existence of a widespread attack against the civilian population as a condition for a crime against humanity, the Trial Panel found that the SPO has failed to prove that this widespread attack against the civilian population was carried out,” said the presiding judge.

Earlier, he said that this judicial case does not concern the legitimacy of the KLA, but only individual responsibility.

Explaining what the object of the judicial process is, Smith emphasized that the case concerns the actions and conduct of the accused, and not the assessment of the KLA or its political goal.

“This judicial case concerns the actions and conduct of the accused related to this matter. It does not concern the legitimacy of the KLA and its goal for an independent Kosovo,” he stated.

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In the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, the final verdict is expected for former KLA leaders, specifically Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

Judge Charles Smith gave a brief summary of the course of the judicial process against Thaçi, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi.

“This judicial case concerns the actions and conduct of the accused. The case concerns only the facts and circumstances related to the charges against the accused in this judicial case. This case is not about the legitimacy of the KLA and its aim for an independent Kosovo. It is not about evaluating the actions of one side against the other. It is not about the crimes that Serbian forces and paramilitaries undoubtedly committed against Kosovo Albanians. This case is only about whether the crimes alleged in the indictment were committed and whether the accused can be held responsible for them,” Smith said.

The trial in this case began on 3 April 2023 and after more than three years, has today reached the stage of announcing the first-instance judgment.

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After more than three years of trial, the Special Court in The Hague is expected to announce today at 10:00 the verdict against former KLA leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.

The decision will be announced by Trial Panel II, composed of three voting judges and one reserve judge. The panel is headed by American Charles L. Smith III, who has a long career in the American judicial system and has served for years as a judge in the state of Iowa.

He has also been an EULEX judge in Kosovo, including at the country’s Supreme Court, and in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers he is precisely the one presiding over the trial panel in this case.

A member of the panel is also the German judge Christoph Barthe, who has extensive experience in criminal and international justice.

He has served as a public prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice in Germany, where he has also dealt with war crimes and genocide cases, and has been part of the panel that has examined the evidence and testimony throughout the process.

The third voting member is Swiss Guénaël Mettraux, whose career is closely tied to international criminal law.

He has worked on war crimes cases, has had experience as a defense lawyer and advisor before several international courts, has served in structures of international justice, and is a professor of international criminal law.

As reserve judge has been appointed Irishman Fergal Gaynor, who has long experience in international justice and has worked on war crimes cases.

He has served in proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and in this process holds the role of reserve judge of the trial panel.

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Democratic Party deputy Klevis Balliu has expressed his firm stance regarding the court hearings taking place in The Hague against former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

According to him, this is a defining moment for the very concept of justice, warning that the conclusion of this process must not produce what he describes as “a second historical injustice for the Albanians of Kosovo.”

In his statement, the lawmaker casts doubt on the internal composition of the institution and stresses that justice must be equal for all. He closes his message by reaffirming unwavering support for the KLA and Kosovo.

Balliu describes today as a decisive test for historical truth. According to the deputy, for years, the central figures of the liberation war have been unjustly held in detention by a court whose staff, as he claims based on public information, is composed of 80% Serbian speakers. He considers the war crimes charges not only baseless but also dangerous, as according to him they risk turning into a second historical injustice against the people of Kosovo. Here he mentions the infants killed in their cradles, the women and sisters raped and tortured, the massacred families, and those men who armed themselves to defend their homes, families, and land against a brutal occupier. In that period, according to him, the world remained shamefully silent until the United States and its allies decided to end the tragedy by intervening to liberate a country that was being destroyed by barbarism.

He describes the KLA as the formation that represented hope for a free, democratic, and Western-oriented Kosovo, contrasting today’s reality where Kosovo stands out as a consolidated democracy, while Serbia continues to be led by an establishment that glorifies the criminal past of the Milošević regime and tolerates nationalist rhetoric. Highlighting a bitter irony, Balliu notes that in The Hague, those who fought to defend their people are being tried, while officials of the regime responsible for the bloody wars of the 1990s continue to be active in Serbian politics. In conclusion, he states that before God, the Albanian nation, and every citizen who believes in freedom, democracy, and Western values, it must be acknowledged that justice cannot be one-sided. According to him, the Special Court today is not simply deciding the fate of a few KLA commanders, but also its own credibility, raising the question of whether it will remain a symbol of justice or be remembered as the institution that equated the victim with those who fought against a genocidal regime. He closes the statement with the calls: “Long live the KLA! Long live Kosovo! Long live the Albanian nation!”.

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This Wednesday, hundreds of Albanians gathered in The Hague, near the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, in support of former KLA leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.

Supporters arrived from Kosovo and various European countries, gathering in anticipation of the verdict against the four former KLA leaders. Among them, KLA flags and Albanian symbols were seen.

In the area near the Special Court, police presence has also increased, while the gathering of Albanians continued in the hours before the session began.

Supporters express solidarity with Thaçi, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi, who have been in detention in The Hague since November 2020.

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This Wednesday, the verdict for former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and Jakup Krasniqi is expected to be announced in The Hague.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers has scheduled the session for 10:00 a.m. The verdict comes after a judicial process that began in April 2023 and lasted more than three years.

The former KLA leaders have been in detention since 2020.

The four defendants face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, persecution, imprisonment, and enforced disappearance.

According to the indictment, the alleged crimes relate to the period from March 1998 to September 1999 in several areas of Kosovo, as well as in Kukës and Cahan.

During the trial, 134 people testified, while closing statements were delivered in February of this year.

The verdict announcement session is public and will also be broadcast in Albanian. Today’s decision is awaited with great interest in Kosovo, Albania, and the diaspora.

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More than 40.6 million euros have been allocated from Kosovo’s state budget to cover legal defense and financial support for people facing charges before the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

A large majority of these funds, around 39.8 million euros, was specifically dedicated to legal representation, according to information provided by Kosovo’s Ministry of Justice to Radio Free Europe.

The four former senior figures of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, alone received more than 28.4 million euros from 2021 through September 14, 2026.

These figures have emerged shortly before September 16, when the four former KLA commanders are due to learn the trial panel’s decision after a process lasting more than three years.

All four have been held in pretrial detention in The Hague since November 2020 and face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which they have categorically rejected and pleaded not guilty to.

According to the Ministry of Justice, from the beginning of the payments through September 14, 2026, the state has paid a total of more than 40.6 million euros under the support scheme for people accused in The Hague. Of this amount, nearly 39.8 million euros went toward defense lawyers’ services, while around 28.47 million euros were spent exclusively on Thaçi, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi during the 2021-2026 period.

Kosovo has established in law an obligation to finance defense costs and other forms of assistance for individuals who are accused or may be accused by this special court.

A total of 14.14 million euros was allocated in 2020 and 2021 to implement this legislation, while 6.85 million euros was allocated in 2022, 7 million euros in 2023, and another 6.85 million euros in 2024. For 2025-2026, 8.05 million euros has been budgeted for each year.

When these budget allocations are added together, the total allocated for the 2020-2026 period reaches approximately 50.95 million euros. However, the Ministry has not made data from before 2020 available, despite RFE having requested information for each year starting in 2015.

From its analysis of state budgets, RFE found that for the 2018-2026 period, the funds earmarked for this purpose exceed 60 million euros. The Ministry of Justice says that there are currently no outstanding obligations to lawyers or other beneficiaries of the program.

The expenditures are subject to an audit by the National Audit Office, but the findings of this audit remain hidden from the public.

Audit reports explain that these payments are classified as “restricted” and therefore are not included in the public report, but are dealt with in a separate document sent only to the responsible authorities.

Although the latest information from the Ministry provides a clearer picture, monitoring organizations say that the lack of transparency regarding how this money is used has been a persistent concern over the years.

Ehat Miftaraj, executive director of the Kosovo Law Institute, stressed that since 2020 the institute has spoken out about the lack of information on expenditures and criticized the partisan approach that creates a narrative by obscuring payment details for each individual.

Miftaraj added that the public has the right to know not only the total amount, but also the exact sum paid to each accused person, as well as the types of services covered, without jeopardizing the confidentiality of the defense strategy.

Along the same lines, Anton Nrecaj of the Center for Legal Aid and Regional Development drew attention to the need to distinguish between the planned budget and the amount actually spent, calling for the publication of the amounts, periods and categories of payments in line with the fees and complexity of the cases.

The legal framework for this financing was established in 2015 with the adoption of the Law on the Specialist Chambers and the Law on Legal Protection and Financial Support for Potentially Accused Persons.

This legislation guarantees coverage of lawyers’ costs and other forms of assistance. The Ministry of Justice bases its payments on a 2022 Administrative Instruction, which was further supplemented in 2024, while family visits are regulated by another instruction from 2020, revised in 2022.

Under the rules currently in force, an accused person is entitled to visits from a maximum of 12 close family members during a year, with no more than three people per visit.

The Specialist Chambers, established under Kosovo’s laws but based in The Hague and staffed internationally, investigate allegations of crimes committed during and after the 1998-1999 conflict, focusing on former KLA members.

If an accused person is acquitted in a final judgment, the law and relevant instructions provide for a right to compensation.

This includes the period of deprivation of liberty, material damage, lost earnings and non-material or moral damage. Although there is no fixed daily rate, Miftaraj explains that administrative practice refers to up to 25 euros per day, while court decisions in similar cases have awarded between 30 and 60 euros per day, depending on the circumstances.

The September 16 judgment could take the judicial process against the four former KLA leaders in a new direction, paving the way for appeals, while the law provides for continued financial support during the further examination of the case.

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