US President Donald Trump’s Envoy for Special Missions, Richard Grenell, on Monday called for the release of Kosovo’s ex-President, Hashim Thaci, from a detention centre in The Hague, where he has been on trial for war crimes since April 2023.

“This wrongful imprisonment must end,” Grenell wrote in a post hashtagged with the name of ex-Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.

Smith resigned from the Specialist Prosecution in November 2022 to take over the investigation into Trump’s involvement in the January 6, 2021 riot at Capitol Hill, Washington. He resigned on January 12, days before Trump’s inauguration for a second presidential term.

Along with wishing the people of Kosovo “a joyous and safe celebration on the 17th anniversary of their independence”, Grenell criticised the Specialist Prosecution in The Hague, which is financially backed by the EU, for its handling of Thaci’s case.

“This milestone is overshadowed by a grave injustice. The founding father of Kosovo’s statehood, President Hashim Thaçi, should be celebrating today in Pristina – not behind bars in The Hague,” Grenell said.

“The Europeans have failed to act against this injustice for the past five years. And Kosovo’s state institutions have failed to take the necessary legal actions to bring this injustice to an end – because of politics,” he added.

BIRN asked the Specialist Chambers for a comment on this claim but did not get a response by the time of publication.

The indictment in the case alleges that Thaci and three other former Kosovo politicians, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity when they were senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, in the late 1990s.

They are accused of having been part of a “joint criminal enterprise” that aimed to take control over Kosovo during the war “by means including unlawfully intimidating, mistreating, committing violence against, and removing those deemed to be opponents”. They have all pleaded not guilty.

The Specialist Chambers were set up to try crimes allegedly committed by KLA guerrillas during and just after the Kosovo war from 1998 to 2000. They are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but are located in The Hague and staffed by internationals.

They were established under pressure from Kosovo’s Western allies, who feared that Kosovo’s justice system was not robust enough to try KLA-related cases and protect witnesses from interference. But the so-called ‘special court’ is widely resented by Kosovo Albanians who see it as an insult to the KLA’s war for liberation from Serbian rule.

The Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office are largely funded by the European Union, although the US has contributed by seconding some staff to the court. The US aid freeze is unlikely to hit the court directly, according to media reports.

Former Specialist Prosecutor Smith has long been a focus of criticism by Trump and his allies. He left the Hague institution in 2022 to work for the US Department of Justice, where he led two criminal investigations into Trump’s activities.

In Trump’s first mandate as US president, Grenell was US ambassador to Germany, and for a few years held the role of his envoy to the Balkans. He brokered an agreement with Kosovo and Serbia on mainly economic issues but most of the points in the deal have not been implemented.