The clock is ticking in Ferizaj/Urosevac. Kosovo’s third-largest city now has installed a countdown timer on Monday, which will reach zero on the day that former president Hashim Thaci is due to learn his fate. The capital, Prishtina, has a similar installation, with other cities due to follow suit.

Along with three other former senior leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Thaci is accused of committing crimes against humanity – including murder, torture and illegal detention – during the Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s. Prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague are calling for a 45-year prison sentence.

But as far as Ferizaj/Urosevac’s mayor Agim Aliu is concerned, Thaci and his co-defendants – Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi – are heroes of Kosovo’s independence struggle. And he believes the newly-installed timer in the city’s main square is counting down the days to what should be a massive celebration.

“Ferizaj and the entire Kosovo [will] experience September 16 as a new date of freedom,” he says, adding that he expects a “historic verdict” reflecting “the sacrifice” the four defendants made for Kosovo’s freedom.

On Monday, Ferizaj/Urosevac became the second municipality to receive a countdown clock, courtesy of the initiative “Freedom Has a Name” (Liria Ka Emer). It plans to install similar timers in other municipalities around Kosovo.

One of the initiative’s leaders is Eliza Hoxha, an MP representing Thaci’s  former party, the PDK (Democratic Party of Kosovo), which is currently in opposition. She says she believes in the four defendants’ innocence.

“Kosovo is waiting, we are all waiting. We will count down hours, minutes, seconds until September 16. Kosovo waits for Thaci, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi to once again stamp our right to be free and independent.”

The charges facing the four men are serious. Prosecutors accuse them of individual and command responsibility for crimes committed against prisoners held at KLA detention facilities in Kosovo and in neighbouring Albania. Those include more than one hundred murders.

The charges cover the period during and just after the Kosovo War in 1998 and 1999. All four defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) was created specifically to try former members of the KLA. As prime minister in 2014, Hashim Thaci signed an agreement with the European Union to establish the court.

It is based in The Hague and staffed by international judges and prosecutors due to doubts about the Kosovo justice system’s ability to try former KLA fighters. Veterans are widely viewed as heroes in Kosovo and the potential for witness intimidation was a serious concern.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that the defendants’ senior roles in the KLA meant they were responsible for subordinates who committed crimes. The defence insisted that the KLA did not have a proper army command structure, so the defendants did not have real authority over lower-ranking fighters.

Thaci resigned as Kosovo’s president in November 2020 to face the charges. Since then, he and his three co-defendants have been in detention in The Hague, with the trial starting in April 2023. KLA veterans and their supporters have staged protests in Prishtina, Tirana, Skopje, Strasbourg and The Hague, accusing the KSC of bias.

Prosecutors brought further charges against Thaci In 2024. He and four others, including former Justice Minister Hajredin Kuci, are accused of obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Prosecutors say Thaci and his co-accused attempted to direct witness testimony in his war crimes trial.

The second case went to trial in February this year, just days after proceedings in Thaci’s first trial concluded. All the accused have pleaded not guilty.