Kosovo president Hashim Thaci, who was a leader during the country’s war for independence, has resigned in order to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at a special court based in The Hague.
Thaci announced his resignation at a news conference on Thursday and said he was quitting to protect the integrity of the presidency of Kosovo.
Thaci commanded fighters in the Kosovo liberation army during the 1998-1999 war.
Thaci and nine others have been accused of committing “nearly 100 murders” and other atrocities against “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo, Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities” and political opponents.
Thaci was questioned over his role in the 1990s conflict by prosecutors in The Hague for the first time in July at the specialist chamber set up in The Hague in 2015 to handle cases of alleged crimes by KLA fighters during the war that eventually led to Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.
The Hague-based court is governed by Kosovo law but is staffed by international judges and prosecutors.
The war, which came to an end after NATO-led air raids, left more than 10,000 dead. Authorities are still unable to account for more than sixteen hundred persons.
