Four former leaders of Kosovo's wartime Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been sentenced to prison by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers — a war crimes court established under Kosovo law but based in The Hague — after being found guilty of arbitrary detention, torture, murder, and cruel treatment committed between 1998 and 1999. Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi, and Rexhep Selimi received sentences ranging from 13 to 25 years, sparking mass protests in Pristina and a political backlash from across Kosovo's political spectrum, with Prime Minister Albin Kurti condemning the verdict as based on "factual inaccuracies and legal errors" and the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo moving to change the legislation underpinning the court. The ruling carries regional significance beyond Kosovo: analysts warn that Serbia — whose interior minister welcomed the verdict as vindication of its long-held position that the KLA was a criminal organisation — along with Russia and China, could exploit the decision to shape narratives about the 1990s Balkan conflicts, particularly as it follows the burial of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide, with military honours in Belgrade.