Prishtinë, 16 September 2026
Dear citizens,
The conviction and such lengthy sentences handed down to the four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, constitute an unacceptable injustice, a grave and harmful punishment. The judgment may have been formally pronounced in the name of the people of Kosovo, but this empty formula should not be confused with the will of the people.
This judgment must be changed and corrected on appeal, and as soon as possible. At this difficult time, we stand with the families of the former KLA leaders and with all their fellow freedom fighters.
As we know, it all began with the allegations raised at the Council of Europe by Russian parliamentarian Konstantin Kosachev and Serbian parliamentarian Miloš Aligrudić on 15 April 2008, but we must ensure that nothing ends today, on 16 September 2026. None of the exaggerated and absurd allegations on which the establishment of the Specialist Chambers was justified, beginning with the Yellow House and allegations of organ trafficking, could be brought by the Prosecution itself due to the lack of evidence.
Moreover, today’s judgment by the Specialist Chambers rejected the most serious allegation that remained in the indictment: that the KLA had carried out a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population. It also became clear that this process was not a trial concerning the legitimacy or conduct of the KLA’s war. Nor was the most fundamental element required for crimes against humanity established. The convictions concern specific allegations of war crimes, including the torture of persons considered collaborators of the Serbian regime. These findings are unjust, but they are not final and will be subject to appellate review.
The injustice of the Prosecution’s allegations has been pointed out not only within Kosovo but also abroad. International figures who had firsthand knowledge of the conflict testified before the Court about the nature of the liberation struggle and the KLA. They described the KLA as a response to decades of repression against Kosovo Albanians and rejected the allegation that it was responsible for ethnic cleansing; they also testified against the notion of a centralized command controlling every action on the ground. These testimonies came from people who witnessed the war from positions of direct international responsibility and who testified about its liberating character. Their detailed criticisms underscore that today’s decision rests on fundamentally flawed foundations, both historically and legally. As we have done from the outset of this process, the Government will continue, through all means at its disposal, to support the accused in the appeal proceedings, where we expect this injustice to be fully corrected.
This judgment cannot be read outside the history in which the KLA emerged. The KLA was not the choice of a people seeking war, but the response of a people who, oppressed and threatened in their very existence, were seeking freedom. The Kosovo Albanian people experienced the abolition of autonomy, exclusion from institutions, dismissal from jobs, exclusion from schools and universities, imprisonment, torture and killings. Then came massacres, the burning of settlements, the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and genocide. This suffering was not an incidental backdrop to the war, but the reality that made resistance a matter of a people’s survival.
No human suffering should be denied or minimized. But it would be equally unjust for findings concerning specific acts to be turned into an indictment against the KLA and a trial of the liberation war. The Kosovo Liberation Army emerged in response to the oppression of a genocidal regime and fought for the liberation of Kosovo. This is its political and historical character, and neither the selective architecture of a judicial mechanism nor one of its judgments can undo it. For a century and a half, from the mid-nineteenth century until the final years of the twentieth century, 24 programmes for the extermination of Albanians were drawn up by various but consistently high-ranking state and political, academic and pseudo-scientific institutions and figures in Serbia.
The Specialist Chambers were established with a specific mandate, but their mandate and activities have focused justice solely on one side of the war. When only members of one ethnic group appear in the dock, while the state apparatus that carried out massacres, expulsions and genocidal crimes remains outside its jurisdiction, this inevitably creates the perception of one-sided, ethnically selective justice. This perception has also been reinforced by the lack of transparency surrounding a process, significant parts of which have taken place away from public scrutiny and assessment.
A mechanism in which criminal responsibility is focused solely on members of one people or ethnic community, while the genocidal crimes of the other side remain outside effective prosecution, raises serious concerns regarding equality before the law, objective impartiality and the legitimacy of the institution itself. Selective justice on ethnic grounds runs counter to the fundamental principle that justice must not only be impartial, but must also be perceived as such.
Kosovo will continue to support Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi throughout the appeal proceedings, with full, dignified and institutional support. This is our responsibility towards our citizens and our belief in the right to challenge a judgment that is not yet final.
Today, specific allegations and acts were adjudicated; the reason why the KLA emerged was not tried, nor can it be condemned, and neither can the KLA itself be tarnished. Because when the homeland could no longer endure its bloodshed, it called upon liberators, and their name was the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Thank you.