Protests Continue in Pristina After Conviction of Kosovo Liberation Army Leaders

Protest in Pristina against the Hague court verdict on September 16, 2026. Photo: EPA/ARBEN LLAPASHTICA. Demonstrators in Pristina against the verdict convicting four former Kosovo Liberation Army KLA leaders of war crimes resumed their protest at around noon on Thursday after continuing until around midnight on Wednesday, the day the judgment was handed down in The Hague. The KLA Veterans’ Organisation’ deputy leader, Gazmend Syla, said on Thursday that it wants to consolidate the demonstrations by establishing a “national coordinating council” with ethnic Albanians from elsewhere in the Balkans and the diaspora, which “will join the students protesting in the [capital’s main] square”. Several students protested on Wednesday chanting “Duam drejtesi, jo politike” (“We want justice, not politics”). They said they were joining the newly-established “Not In My Name” movement, which was set up in reaction to presiding Judge Charles Smith III announcing the guilty verdict “in the names of the people of Kosovo”. Kosovo’s ex President Hashim Thaci and his co-defendants, former parliament speakers Jakup Krasniqi and Kadri Veseli and ex-MP Rexhep Selimi, were sentenced to 25, 25, 18 and 13 years in jail respectively. All four were found guilty of bearing responsibility for crimes carried out while they were senior officials of the KLA during the 1998-99 war with Serbian forces. The four were found not guilty of crimes against humanity, of persecution, imprisonment, other inhumane acts, torture, murder and enforced disappearances, but cleared of crimes against humanity because these were committed after the end of the Kosovo war. Thaci, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi had all pleaded not guilty to all charges, and will appeal against the verdict. On Wednesday night after the verdict, angry protesters in Pristina threw stones and firecrackers at the Kosovo government building and the headquarters of the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX. In The Hague, where thousands of supporters of the defendants had gathered to hear the verdict, anger erupted when the sentences were announced. Dutch police prevented them marching towards the court. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was created specifically to try former members of the KLA, under pressure from Kosovo’s Western allies. The court is widely disliked in Kosovo, where it is seen as denigrating the KLA’s just war against Serbian oppression.