Reuters reports about Special: Thaci, US-backed national hero, is charged with about 100 murders

The first trial opened Wednesday in a special court dealing with the 1998-1999 crimes in the Kosovo conflict, Reuters writes.

Kosovo's Specialised Chambers were established in 2015 to tackle crimes not tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which prosecuted individuals for crimes during the Balkan wars in the ninth years and was closed in 2017.

The Tribunal is in The Hague and consists of international judges and lawyers, but is formally the Kosovo court involved in Kosovo laws, not the international court as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

The first case is against Salih Mustaf, 50, the former pro-independence commander who on Wednesday was declared innocent of war crimes. He is charged with charges of murder, management of a prison where prisoners had faced daily beatings and torture. Prosecutors said the victims were Albanians, who were not politically reconciled to Kosovo Liberation Army fighters.

Kosovo's Specialised Chambers have filed charges against eight suspects. They're all under ban in a Dutch coastal town, Scheveningen. Among them is former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who resigned from office last year and surrendered to face war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors hold Thaci responsible for about 100 murder of civilians during the war, when he was commander of The KLA, which fought the Serbian police and army.

Thaci, the US-backed national hero, entered political career after leading the KLA battle against forces under Milosevic's command. He has been a dominant political figure in the country since declaring independence 13 years ago.

At least 13,000 people died during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, then Serbia's province under the power of the late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.