Ex-President Thaci insists on innocence

Hashim Thaci faces a tribunal in The Hague: the ex-president of Kosovo is accused of almost 100 murders. But he insists on his innocence.

Kosovo’s ex-president Hashim Thaci rejected the allegations against him at the start of his war crimes trial. The 54-year-old pleaded not guilty to all charges on Monday.

The former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) stands before a special tribunal of the International Criminal Court dealing with crimes committed against Serbia during the Kosovo war in the late 1990s. Thaci faces 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including nearly 100 murders, torture and disappearance. Some of the acts are said to have been committed after the end of hostilities.

Thaci faces a tribunal along with three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army. They have also declared in advance that they are innocent.

The crimes are said to have been committed between 1998 and 1999. At that time, the KLA was fighting for the independence of Kosovo, when it was still a province of Serbia under the late President Slobodan Milosevic.

More than 13,000 people, most of them members of Kosovo’s Albanian majority, are believed to have died during the uprising. Among his supporters, Thaci is considered a war hero who led Kosovo to independence. Under international law, the independence of the republic is considered controversial; 115 UN member states recognize them so far.