PRISTINA -- For more than two years, Kosovo war crimes prosecutors have laid out evidence, questioning scores of witnesses, building their case for why former President Hashim Thaci should be convicted for his role in the killing or detention of scores of people during and after the country's war of independence.
On April 15, the trial hits a significant milestone as the prosecution rests its case, and lawyers for Thaci, and three other officials, begin arguing their defense.
The trial is the most consequential to date for the court, formally known as the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office, which is part of an international effort to account for the infighting that gripped the country during and after its war for independence in the late 1990s.
The prosecution's case has been criticized by outside observers, who say it's failed to prove Thaci shared responsibility for a "joint criminal enterprise" that targeted "collaborators" and "traitors" to "gain power" following the country's independence.
"The two most serious parts of the indictment -- claiming a joint criminal enterprise and a chain of command -- in our analysis, the prosecution has failed to prove such things existed in practice," Ehat Miftaraj, director of the Kosovo Institute for Justice, told RFE/RL's Kosovo Service.
The court has also faced growing pushback from the United States, which is a major financial donor of the court as well as a major supplier of legal staff.
Ric Grennell, who was special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations during President Donald Trump's first administration, has slammed Thaci's detention as a "grave injustice."
Movements Of Liberation
Years before becoming Kosovo's first post-independence prime minister, in 2008, Thaci was one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a militia group that waged a years-long fight to break Kosovo away from Serbia and from Yugoslavia.
In 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslav military units to halt a campaign of terror that Belgrade had launched against Kosovo.
The province declared independence from Serbia in 2008, something not recognized by Serbia to this day. The two countries have tense relations, with local ethnic enclaves clashing over municipal rules, though both have also exchanged diplomatic representatives.
In 2016, the same year Thaci was elected president, the European Union backed the creation of a hybrid court that would investigate crimes committed during and after the war, particularly by the Kosovo Liberation Army, known as the KLA. Housed at The Hague, the court staffed mainly by international judges and lawyers, but is authorized under Kosovo's constitution.
In 2020, the court indicted Thaci, and three other top KLA leaders, alleging they were responsible for helping to set up a network of 40 detention centers, where over 400 people were detained. At least 102 were killed and more than 20 others are considered missing, prosecutor charged.
Thaci, who stepped down as president after he was indicted, and his codefendants have all been held in pre-trial detention in The Hague since November 2020.
Thaci's co-defendants are Kadri Veseli, the former head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo; Rexhep Selimi, a lawmaker now affiliated with the current Prime Minister Albin Kurti; and Jakup Krasniqi, a former speaker of Kosovo's parliament.
Defense lawyers have rejected all charges, arguing that the KLA lacked an effective chain of command.
'A Grave Injustice'
Though now disbanded, the KLA remains a popular organization for many Kosovars, who credit it with the fight that led to independence. Thaci also remains a popular figure, fueling criticism in Kosovo society for the court.
The court's main European backers continue to support the proceedings. However, under the Trump administration, the United States, which is a major supplier of legal staffing to the court, has become a vocal critic.
Americans rank second after the Netherlands in terms of personnel staffing the court, and the court's vice president and its current chief prosecutor are also both U.S. citizens.
At the time Thaci was indicted, he had planned a trip to Washington, D.C., and he was forced to cancel.
The prosecutor who issued the indictment was Jack Smith, who was later appointed special counsel under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, and tasked with brought two sets of criminal charges against Trump himself.
Trump himself, and most of his Republican supporters, strenuously criticized the two criminal cases Smith brought against him, alleging they were politically motivated.
Grennell, whom Trump re-appointed as a special envoy at the beginning of his second term in January, has repeatedly called for the court's closure. In February, on Kosovo's Independence Day, he described Thaci's continued detention as a "grave injustice."
"The Europeans have failed to act against this injustice for the past 5 years," Grenell said in a now-deleted post to X. "And Kosovo's state institutions have failed to take the necessary legal actions to bring this injustice to an end -- because of politics."
If the US administration were to formally call for the closure of the court, it could severely damage the process, Miftaraj said. However, he added, international backers want to see the trial completed, and he said the chances of a political decision shutting it down entirely were "small."
Miftaraj said he expects the entire process to conclude, with the court handing down a verdict, by spring of 2026.
