THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci, considered a hero by compatriots for leading the 1998-99 insurgency against Serbian rule that led to independence, will go on trial on Monday for suspected war crimes during the conflict.
He is one of just a small number of heads of state who have faced justice in international and hybrid war crimes tribunals. Following is a look at sitting and former heads of state who have appeared as defendants since World War Two.
NAZI GERMANY - KARL DOENITZ
At the Nuremberg trials in 1945, seen as the forerunners of international war crimes tribunals, Nazi Germany’s political, military, and economic leaders were prosecuted. Among them was Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, the first former German president to be put on trial. Doenitz, who was only a head of state for a few months after the suicide of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, was convicted in 1946 and spent 10 years in a West Berlin jail.
YUGOSLAVIA - SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
Former Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic became the first ex-head of state to stand trial before an international court since World War Two when his trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) started in The Hague in 2002.
Milosevic was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his leading role in the 1990s Balkan wars that followed the break-up of federal Yugoslavia. Before a judgment could be rendered, Milosevic died in his cell in a Hague detention centre in 2006.
LIBERIA - CHARLES TAYLOR
The first ex-head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials was former Liberian president Charles Taylor. His trial before the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone started in 2006. In 2012 he was convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the notoriously brutal militias he backed in nearby Sierra Leone. Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison that he is now serving in Britain.
KENYA - UHURU KENYATTA
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has seen two heads of state appear before it in proceedings against them. In 2014 then-Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta became the first sitting head of state to appear before the ICC in a pre-trial hearing
The charges against him were related to alleged stoking of ethnic tensions before the 2007 presidential election and committed before be became head of state. Later in 2014, the prosecution withdrew the charges and blamed the decision on political interference with witnesses, especially after Kenyatta was elected president. In 2015 the ICC dropped the case
IVORY COAST - LAURENT GBAGBO
In 2016 former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo became the first former head of state to go on trial before the ICC. Gbagbo faced charges of crimes against humanity related to post-election violence over his refusal to accept defeat at the polls in 2010 following a decade in power