Widespread anger and street protests have erupted across Kosovo after an internationally backed court convicted four former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders of war crimes, sentencing them to combined decades in prison. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), a court based in The Hague and staffed by international judges but established under Kosovo law, found former president Hashim Thaçi, former parliament speakers Jakup Krasniqi and Kadri Veseli, and former MP Rexhep Selimi guilty of illegal arrests, torture, murder and cruel treatment committed during the 1998–1999 war for independence from Serbia. Thaçi and Krasniqi each received 25-year sentences, Veseli 18 years and Selimi 13. All four were acquitted on charges of crimes against humanity and have announced they will appeal.

Presiding Judge Charles Smith described the scale and nature of the crimes as "very serious," citing 96 murders of ethnic Albanians, Serbs and Roma — among them political opponents of the KLA — with victims shot or beaten to death. The crimes were committed between April 1998 and June 1999, during a conflict that claimed roughly 13,000 lives and ended with a NATO intervention that expelled Serbian forces from the territory. Kosovo, a small nation of about 1.6 million people in the western Balkans, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, with Thaçi playing a central role in that process.

The verdicts, delivered on Wednesday, drew immediate protests in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, where crowds had gathered to watch the proceedings on a large screen. Demonstrators threw stones and firecrackers at the government building and the headquarters of EULEX, the European Union's Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, while riot police attempted to disperse the crowds. In The Hague, Dutch police used water cannon to hold back angry supporters who had massed near the court. Protests resumed on Thursday, with the KLA Veterans' Organisation announcing plans to form a "national coordinating council" bringing together ethnic Albanians from across the Balkans and the diaspora. Students also joined under a newly formed "Not In My Name" movement, objecting to the judge's phrasing that the verdict had been delivered "in the names of the people of Kosovo."

The KSC has been deeply unpopular in Kosovo since its founding, widely viewed as denigrating the KLA's struggle against Serbian rule. Its use of evidence supplied by Belgrade has fuelled accusations of political bias, though its mandate has been firmly backed by Kosovo's Western allies. Prime Minister Albin Kurti called the verdict "a great and harmful punishment" and urged it to be corrected on appeal. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, meanwhile, was dissatisfied for the opposite reasons, criticising the court for what he said was insufficient attention to crimes against ethnic Serb civilians.

The convictions mark a watershed moment for Kosovo's post-war identity. For many Kosovo Albanians, the four men remain heroes of a liberation struggle, a perception that has long complicated the court's work. Thaçi, who resigned the presidency and surrendered to the court after his 2020 indictment, has maintained his innocence throughout. He will remain detained in The Hague during the appeals process and also faces a separate trial on alleged obstruction of justice charges, for which prosecutors have requested a further six-year sentence.