Police clash with Kosovo protesters over bid to curb Hague war crimes court

Police in Kosovo clashed with protesters outside the parliament building in Pristina on Monday evening after lawmakers failed to complete a vote on proposed changes to limit the powers of the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers. Officers used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd as some demonstrators tried to block lawmakers from leaving the area. The unrest came as parliament ended its session without passing the amendments, which had already cleared a first reading earlier in the day.

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Several hundred people gathered outside the parliament, including supporters and veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian rebel force that fought Serbian troops during the 1998-2000 war. Some protesters threw flares and firecrackers during the confrontation. Naser Syla, the emergency director at a hospital in Pristina, said 12 people were injured, including 11 civilians.

The immediate trigger was the stalled legislation, which would have limited sentences to 15 years, allowed sentences to be served in Kosovo and permitted appeals to the country's Supreme Court. The dispute has become part of a wider political struggle in Kosovo, where the court remains deeply controversial. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was founded in 2015 as an independent part of Kosovo's judicial system, but it is based in The Hague and staffed internationally.

Critics have accused it of handing down overly punitive verdicts, while supporters say it is needed to deal with alleged war crimes committed during the conflict. The latest tensions followed the September 16 convictions of former President Hashim Thaci and three other former KLA commanders, who received prison terms ranging from 13 to 25 years. Those rulings prompted weeks of protests and were unanimously condemned by Kosovo's parliament in late September.

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The issue has also become linked to negotiations over a new presidential election. Kosovo's Constitutional Court has ruled that the self-declared republic has until October 6 to elect a president, or parliament will be dissolved and the country will face another early election. That deadline has increased the political stakes around the court reform debate and added pressure on lawmakers already divided over the proposed amendments.

The protest also highlights the continuing sensitivity of war-crimes accountability in Kosovo more than two decades after the conflict ended. The Kosovo Liberation Army remains a powerful symbol for many ethnic Albanians, while the Specialist Chambers continues to draw criticism from those who see it as unfairly targeting former rebel leaders. At the same time, the court is part of Kosovo's own legal framework, even though it operates abroad and with international staff.

The clash in Pristina shows how legal reform, wartime memory and current political bargaining are now intersecting in a single dispute. What remains unclear is whether lawmakers will return to the amendments before the presidential deadline, and whether the protests will continue if the bill remains stalled. It is also not yet clear how many of the injured required further treatment beyond the initial hospital report.

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