More than 27 years after the end of the Kosovo war, former prime minister and president Hashim Thaçi and three other leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. Thaçi and his fellow defendants faced charges including arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder committed during Kosovo’s struggle for independence.

The guilty verdict was reached after a three-year trial in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague. The special court was set up in 2015 to try crimes committed during the 1998-99 war, in which about 13,500 people were killed or went missing and roughly 1.5 million people were displaced.

So why did it take so long to convict Thaçi and his fellow defendants? Global power politics is often touted as the explanation for delays or even for states’ failure to act on an international arrest warrant. Benjamin Netanyahu appeared at the UN general assembly in September, despite being subject to an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Similarly, Vladimir Putin met the US president, Donald Trump, for a summit in Alaska in August 2025. He is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for the aggression against Ukraine.

Both leaders are seemingly safe from international accountability while they enjoy the support of the US.

Yet, the case of the western Balkans illustrates that international prosecutions against heads of states are also affected by national politics within the host states.

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