The announcement of the verdict was greeted with shock and profound disappointment in Pristina. Thousands of citizens had gathered in the main square of Kosovo's capital, many waving flags of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), to follow the announcement live on large screens. Similar gatherings took place across the country in Kosovo's main cities.
When it became clear that the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague had found former President Hashim Thaci guilty of war crimes — along with former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi — the crowd fell silent. The silence was followed by calls for justice and chants of support for the four men. Groups of citizens began trying to demolish sections of the perimeter wall surrounding EULEX, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, which was deployed in Kosovo after the country's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 and continues to operate to this day.
Large numbers of Kosovo police officers and special units intervened to prevent further damage and incidents. It wasn't just the people on the streets who were disappointed: Kosovo's political leaders were quick to respond to the news from The Hague. "The conviction of the former KLA leaders is a terrible judgment for Kosovo, for our liberation war," said Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca, who was present in the courtroom in The Hague when the verdict was announced.
He called it "a major blow to the state and to the domestic narrative." "Kosovo experienced the war itself. We know what the KLA war was about, and we know that there was no criminal mechanism to harm any population. It is a sad, unjust and undeserved decision," he said.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti called the verdict an "unacceptable injustice." "The conviction and such a severe sentence for four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army is an unacceptable injustice, a great and harmful punishment," Kurti said on Wednesday. The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which was founded immediately after the war by Thaci and several other former KLA leaders, described the guilty verdict as an "unjust and unacceptable judgment," stressing that "the battle for justice continues until the very end." "In The Hague, the right of our people, who fought for freedom, survival and liberation from the Serbian state regime that killed, expelled and terrorized Kosovo Albanians, was dealt a severe blow," the PDK said in a statement. "For us, this judgment represents a major injustice because it is based on allegations and material that we consider fabricated and which, over the years, have been promoted by the Serbian state apparatus and propaganda in an effort to criminalize the just war of the Kosovo Liberation Army." The response from Kosovo's acting president, Albulena Haxhiu, was similar.
She described the convictions of the four men as "a severe blow to their families, deeply shocking news for the Republic of Kosovo and a grave moment for the Albanian nation wherever it lives." "On a day like this, the weight of this decision cannot be separated from the history from which we have emerged," Haxhiu wrote in her statement. "Kosovo experienced firsthand the violence of a state apparatus that killed civilians, committed massacres, expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians from their homes and left behind thousands of people killed or missing. This experience is an indelible part of the memory of Kosovo and the Albanian nation." The panel of judges at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague handed down the guilty verdicts over three years after the start of the trial and nearly six years after the four men were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1998–99 Kosovo War.
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