A court in The Hague has convicted Kosovo's former President Hashim Thaci of war crimes and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the Hague-based tribunal established to try crimes allegedly committed during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, handed down the sentence against the one-time guerrilla commander turned president. Thaci, who led the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the war and later served as the country's president from 2016 until his resignation in 2020, surrendered to the court in November 2020 after the indictment against him was confirmed.

The conviction marks a landmark moment for the specialist tribunal. Thaci is the most senior Kosovo Albanian figure to face judgment before the court, which the Kosovo Assembly created in 2015 through legislation to address alleged crimes by KLA members that other international mechanisms left untried. The court operates under Kosovo law but sits in The Hague with international judges.

The verdict carries heavy political weight in Kosovo, where many view the KLA leadership as liberators from Serbian rule under Slobodan Milosevic. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, backed by Western powers, and Thaci was a central figure in its statehood and international recognition. Serbia, along with several other states, does not recognise Kosovo's independence, and the trial has drawn close attention in Belgrade, Pristina and among Western governments that supported both Kosovo's statehood and the court's creation.

For practitioners, the judgment is significant on several fronts. It is the first conviction of a former head of state by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, testing the tribunal's jurisdiction over sitting and former officials and its relationship with the Kosovo justice system. Defence teams are expected to consider appeals before the court's appellate panel, which could extend proceedings by months or years. The verdict also completes a central chapter in the tribunal's docket, with the court now moving through remaining cases arising from its indictments.

The sentence of 25 years makes the Thaci case one of the longest handed down by the Hague-based Kosovo tribunal to date.