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Justice or shame? Albanians sentenced to 150 years more in prison for the war than Serbs

2026-09-16 13:50:59Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA ARDIT RADA
Justice or shame? Albanians sentenced to 150 years more in prison for the war
Ardit Rada

There is a question that, after the Hague decisions, can no longer be avoided: how is it possible that, almost three decades after the Kosovo war, the balance of justice creates the impression that such a heavy burden has fallen on the leaders of the KLA that fought for liberation against the forces of Slobodan Milosevic?

This is not about denying individual crimes or the criminal responsibility of anyone proven to have committed them. But justice is also measured by proportionality, context, and the way the burden of responsibility is distributed among the parties to a conflict. And this is where the great debate about Kosovo arises.

The 1998-1999 war was not a conflict between two armies and two states of equal power. On one side was the Yugoslav and Serbian state apparatus, with its army, police, security structures, and a state chain of command. On the other side was the KLA, an Albanian guerrilla force fighting against Belgrade.

The International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia itself has convicted senior Serbian and Yugoslav political, military, and police leaders for crimes in Kosovo.

Nikola Šainović was ultimately sentenced to 18 years in prison, Nebojša Pavković to 22 years, Sreten Lukić to 20 years, Vladimir Lazarević to 14 years, and Dragoljub Ojdanić to 15 years.

These five senior officials alone received a combined 89 years in prison.

By roughly summing up the sentences for crimes related to the Kosovo war by the ICTY, Serbian courts, UNMIK/EULEX and Kosovo courts, and adding the decisions of the Special Chamber to date, a frightening and shameful balance emerges. In total, approximately 480 years of imprisonment have been given for the war for Albanians compared to 330 years for Serbs. The balance of 2019 counted 38 Albanians convicted against 25 Serbs for war crimes in Kosovo, combining the ICTY, Serbian courts and UNMIK/EULEX. To this are added subsequent decisions and especially the Special Chamber.

But at the center of this story is another name: Slobodan Milošević, who was never convicted. He was transferred to The Hague in June 2001 and died in custody on March 11, 2006. Three days later, the criminal trial against him was closed without a final verdict. So, he spent nearly five years in custody, but legally he did not serve a single day of prison time, because there was never a guilty verdict. Likewise, Milan Milutinović, the former president of Serbia, responsible for some 150,000 deaths, was declared innocent by the Hague Tribunal on all counts of the indictment. And these are the shames of The Hague that failed to reach a verdict, mainly for Milošević, the greatest criminal that Europe has known since the Second World War.

Today, the verdicts against former KLA leaders make the contrast even starker. How will history record the fact that Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav wartime president, died without ever being convicted, while KLA leaders are receiving sentences that span decades?

If The Hague aims not only to convict individuals, but also to leave a legal truth for history to understand, then it must be able to explain to the victims and to future generations that its justice has been proportional.

Today, among other things, the Special Forces owe Kosovo a much greater answer than the 81 years of unjust imprisonment they were given. They even owe the entire world a bad example: that whoever defends himself is punished more than the aggressor.


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

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