Hashim Thaçi, the former president of Kosovo, traveled to Kosovo under tight security to visit his father, who is hospitalised at the University Clinical Center of Kosovo. The visit was arranged under a special custody order by the Specialist Chambers, where Thaçi remains in detention facing charges of war crimes.
Former president of Kosovo Hashim Thaçi, who is in detention at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, arrived in Kosovo on Thursday to visit his father, who is hospitalised at the University Clinical Center of Kosovo.
Thaçi was under the supervision of a special police unit and the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, police.
Michael Doyle, spokesperson of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers told BIRN that “due to compelling humanitarian grounds, the Trial Panel and the pre-trial Judge have instructed the Registry to manage a custodial visit to Kosovo for Hashim Thaçi to be with his father. The accused remains in detention and in the custody of the Specialist Chambers.”
Thaçi was charged in 2020 with war crimes and crimes against humanity alongside fellow former guerrillas Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi, and Rexhep Selimi.
He has been in detention for almost four-and-a-half years since his arrest in November 2020.
The indictment alleges that Thaçi and three other co-accused committed war crimes and crimes against humanity while they were senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the late 1990s.
They are accused of being part of a “joint criminal enterprise,” aimed at taking control over Kosovo during the war “by means including unlawfully intimidating, mistreating, committing violence against, and removing those deemed to be opponents.” All four have pleaded not guilty.
Thaçi began this year by rejecting a new indictment against him in which prosecutors say he revealed secret information about prosecution witnesses and coordinated with four visitors to his Hague cell “to unlawfully influence the testimony of and or contact,” those witnesses. He has also pleaded not guilty in this case.
The Specialist Chambers were established to try crimes allegedly committed by KLA guerrillas during and shortly after the Kosovo War from 1998 to 2000. These chambers are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but are located in The Hague and staffed by international personnel.
They were set up under pressure from Kosovo’s Western allies, who feared that Kosovo’s justice system was not robust enough to handle KLA-related cases and protect witnesses from interference. However, the so-called “special court” is widely resented by Kosovo Albanians, who view it as an insult to the KLA’s fight for liberation from Serbian rule.
