PRISTINA": Kosovo president and former guerilla leader Hashim Thaci resigned Thursday to face an indictment from a war crimes court in The Hague, a dramatic downfall for a man who has sat at the centre of power for more than a decade. The 52-year-old said he was stepping down to "protect the integrity" of the presidency after a judge confirmed an indictment against him linked to the 1990s conflict with Serbia, when Thaci was political chief of Kosovo's rebel army. "I will cooperate closely with justice. I believe in truth, reconciliation and the future of our country and society," he told a press conference in Pristina.
He later left Kosovo from a military airport with two other indicted ex-rebels, with local media reporting they were destined for The Hague. A former premier who became president in 2016, Thaci has long stressed his innocence in a war that most Kosovars consider a just liberation struggle against Serbian oppression.
Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanian population suffered heavily during the 1998-99 separatist conflict, which claimed 13,000 lives and ended only after a NATO bombing forced Serb troops to withdraw from the province.
Serbian military and police officials were later convicted by international justice of war crimes.
But rebel leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - many of whom have gone on to dominate politics - have also been accused of revenge attacks on Serbs, Roma and ethnic Albanian rivals during and after the war.
In June, prosecutors from the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) accused Thaci and others of being "criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders" in addition to other crimes including the enforced disappearance of people, persecution and torture.
Since then suspense has run high over if and when a pre-trial judge would confirm the indictment. Thaci did not say Thursday which specific charges in the indictment had been confirmed, while prosecutors declined to comment. A total of five former rebel leaders have now been indicted, including the two who left Kosovo with Thaci on Thursday. A day earlier European police arrested a former KLA spokesman and transferred him to The Hague.
Set up with EU-backing five years ago, the KSC operates under Kosovo law but is based in the Netherlands to protect witnesses from intimidation in a society where former rebel commanders are hugely influential. Prosecutors have twice publicly accused Thaci of trying to undermine the work of the tribunal.
Known for his shrewd political manoeuvres and by the nom de guerre "Snake", Thaci is far from a hero to all at home. Critics see him as the face of an entrenched political elite whose corruption and mismanagement have mired ordinary Kosovars in grinding poverty and warped its young democratic institutions. But few Kosovo Albanians will criticise the legacy of the KLA, with voices from across the political spectrum defending the war after Thaci was first accused. Twenty years later, relations between Kosovo and Serbia are still tense and complicated, with Belgrade refusing to recognise the independence Pristina declared in 2008.
In Thaci's absence, parliamentary speaker Vjosa Osmani will serve as acting president.