Former Kosovo president Thaci pleads not guilty to war crimes
Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci on Monday pleaded not guilty to 10 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity as his trial opened at a special court in The Hague.
Allegations of persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearance of people stem from the 1998-99 insurgency that eventually brought independence from Serbia and made him a hero among compatriots.
Thaci and three co-defendants, all former close associates in the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and later in peacetime politics, all pleaded not guilty shortly after hearings got underway.
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"I understand the indictment and I am fully not guilty," Thaci said in court.
More than 13,000 people, the majority of them members of Kosovo's 90% ethnic Albanian majority, are believed to have died during the insurgency, when it was still a province of Serbia under then-strongman president Slobodan Milosevic.
The trial, conducted by international judges and prosecutors, began with opening statements by the prosecution followed by defence lawyers and a representative of Kosovo's war Victims Council over the ensuing three days.
Thaci, 54, resigned as president shortly after his indictment and was transferred to detention in The Hague.
