Letter to Amnesty International regarding request for clarification of Amnesty International’s statement on the Thaçi et al. judgment

Pristina, September 25, 2026 – Dear Ms Major and Amnesty International colleagues,

We, the undersigned civil society organisations in Kosovo, write to express concern about the framing of Amnesty International’s statement of 16 September 2026 concerning the first-instance judgment against Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.

Our concern centres on the reference to convictions that “give hope to thousands of victims of the Kosovo war”, followed by background information confined entirely to the proceedings against these four individuals. While the statement invokes the wider suffering of Kosovo’s war victims, it provides no context concerning crimes committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo. In our view, this creates an incomplete account of the wider history to which the statement refers.

We recognise that a judgment in one case can offer encouragement to victims awaiting justice in other cases. However, the distinction between that broader hope and the specific responsibility adjudicated in these proceedings must be clear. Without it, readers unfamiliar with the conflict may associate the wider population of Kosovo’s war victims with the crimes alleged in this particular judgment.

The background section’s inclusion of offence-specific figures does not adequately resolve this concern. Those figures describe the scope of the case; they do not explain the broader context of wartime victimisation or distinguish the different perpetrators responsible. Equally, the references to acquittals on crimes against humanity and the possibility of appeal, while necessary, address the procedural outcome rather than this contextual omission.

The Kosovo Memory Book database, compiled jointly by the Humanitarian Law Center and the Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo, recorded, as of 7 November 2014, 13,517 people killed or disappeared in connection with the Kosovo war between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000: 10,792 Albanians, 2,197 Serbs, and 528 Roma, Bosniaks and members of other communities. The record includes civilians and members of armed forces. These figures document losses across the conflict and its aftermath; they do not establish responsibility attributable to the four defendants, nor do they encompass the full range of harms suffered by survivors.

Separately, according to data collected by the same organisations, Serbian forces killed 6,872 Albanian civilians in Kosovo between 20 March and 14 June 1999. This documented scale of civilian killing is essential context when invoking the wider population of Kosovo’s war victims and their continuing demands for justice. Twenty-seven years later, not a single senior VJ or MUP commander has been prosecuted in Serbia for operations in which thousands of civilians were killed, despite thousands of facts established in ICTY judgments concerning the actions of VJ and MUP units and their links to command structures headed by generals who were ultimately convicted.

We do not expect a statement about an individual judgment to recount the entire history of the war. Nevertheless, when Amnesty International expressly invokes the wider population of Kosovo’s war victims, it should provide enough context to represent that history responsibly. Omitting any reference to crimes committed by Serbian forces leaves the experiences of their victims outside the account, even as the statement draws on the suffering of Kosovo’s victims collectively.

Precision matters both for individual accountability and for public understanding. Responsibility must remain tied to specific perpetrators, acts and findings. The broader history of the conflict should not be conveyed through a single proceeding, and justice for victims whose cases fall outside that proceeding must remain visible.

We therefore request that Amnesty International revise the statement to distinguish explicitly between the victims covered by the Thaçi et al. trial and the wider population of Kosovo’s war victims. We further ask that it include concise context acknowledging crimes committed by Serbian forces and the continuing need for accountability for those crimes. If the reference to thousands of victims is intended to convey the wider encouragement that accountability may offer, that meaning should be stated clearly.

Our request reflects a commitment to truth, justice and reparation for all victims, irrespective of ethnicity or the identity of those responsible. We support fair proceedings, respect for the right of appeal, and public communication that accurately represents both judicial findings and the historical context in which they arise.

We would welcome a written response explaining how Amnesty International intends to address these concerns.

The undersigned civil society organisations
Prishtina Institute for Political Studies (PIPS)
Kosovo Law Institute (KLI)
Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF)
Kosova Democratic Institute / Transparency International Kosova
Kosovo Advocacy and Development Centre (KADC)
FOL Movement
Qendra për Informim, Kritikë dhe Aksion (QIKA)
The Kosovar Organization for Talent and Education (TOKA)
Schüler Helfen Leben Kosova
Fourth Wave
Ramadan Ilazi – Head of Research at Kosovo Centre for Security Studies (KCSS)
Network of NGO’s AVONET
YES NGO See less