Vucic on Thaci Verdict: Serbs Will Always Be the Criminals
Serbia's president addressed the nation after the first instance verdict against KLA leaders in The Hague and said Serbs will always be cast as criminals, others as liberators.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic addressed the public on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., and did so, as he explained himself, deliberately only after regional figures had already reacted to the first instance verdict against the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi were acquitted that same day in The Hague, before the Kosovo Specialized Chambers, on all six counts of crimes against humanity, but convicted on four counts of war crimes. Srpske Novine had earlier that day reported only the verdict itself and the reaction of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
Vucic opened his address by saying that preserving peace and stability was “of decisive importance” for Serbia, adding that the strength of emotions nearly three decades after the wars also showed that the region was still not ready to confront its own mistakes.
He then went through the findings of the verdict itself. According to what he presented, the court found no guilt on any of the six counts of crimes against humanity, counts one, two, four, six, eight and ten, while it established individual responsibility for four war crimes: the unlawful detention of at least 385 people, cruel treatment of at least 49 people, torture of at least 303 people and the killing of at least 96 people. The combined sentence for the four defendants comes to 81 years, with Thaci and Krasniqi each sentenced to 25 years, Veseli to 18 and Selimi to 13.
Vucic also said the verdict did not cover certain crimes committed against Serbs, among them the massacre near Lake Radonjic, the killing of 22 Serb civilians in Klecka and the murder of the five member Sutanovic family in Djakovica on June 12, 1999. According to him, crimes against Serbs committed after June 20, 1999 were not considered at all in these proceedings, since by that point KFOR had already arrived and the armed conflict was deemed over.
What comes after the first instance verdict
The president announced that the case was far from closed. Next comes an appeal to the second instance panel in The Hague, followed, he said, by the possibility of turning to Kosovo’s Constitutional Court, which, if it finds that any of the convicted had their rights violated, could send the case back for a retrial at first instance. “Even if the verdict is upheld, there is a third stage, the Constitutional Court of the so called Kosovo, which can send it back to be decided again at first instance,” Vucic said.
Most of the address, however, was devoted to the reactions that had come in from the region throughout the day. Vucic said he was reading them out to citizens on purpose, because “it’s hard to keep up with all of it” on your own. He read out the reactions of Albanian President Bajram Begaj and Prime Minister Edi Rama, who called the verdict “shameful,” then the reaction of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who announced that his government in Pristina would support the four convicted men in their appeal by every means available. He also read out a statement from Montenegro’s Deputy Prime Minister Niko Djeljosaj, as well as reactions from Bekim Salija and North Macedonia’s parliament speaker Afrim Gasi. He lingered in particular on a statement from Croatia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, as he read it, said the verdict did not change the historical context of the war in Kosovo.
From all of these reactions, the president drew the same conclusion, one he repeated several times during the address.
“Serbs will always be the criminals, and everyone else will always be the liberators, the heroes.”
Vucic also addressed his own earlier predictions about how the trial would end, predictions he had made publicly several times over the preceding weeks, forecasting a lighter sentence than the one actually handed down. Asked by an N1 reporter, who reminded him of that earlier prediction, he said his forecasts had in fact been twofold.
“First I said they would go easy on him and cover the time already spent in detention, and then, speaking from Paris, I said I had heard the sentence would end up considerably harsher,” he said.
Despite his sharp tone toward the region, the president said the verdict should be met with neither euphoria nor grief. “We have no reason to celebrate or to mourn,” he said, adding that Serbia would keep choosing dialogue as its response.
“Our message is peace, composure, stability,” Vucic concluded, saying the region, in his words, would remain “united in its hatred of Serbs,” but that this would not change Belgrade’s commitment to dialogue with all sides.
