Kosovo war crimes court jails ex-president Hashim Thaçi for 25 years, sparking mass protests

BREAKING: Kosovo's war crimes court jails former president Hashim Thaci for 25 years, triggering mass protests in Pristina as supporters clash with police.

Twenty five years. That's the sentence for Hashim Thaçi, Kosovo's former president.

The war crimes court handed down the verdict today, and you can see the moment here, the man who led Kosovo's fight for independence, then its government, now heading to prison for a quarter of a century. Thaçi commanded the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war with Serbia in the late nineties, and the charges reach back to that period. He had denied everything.

Back home, the reaction was immediate. Thousands poured into the streets of Pristina, and supporters clashed with police. For a lot of Kosovars he's still the father of the nation. For the court, he's a convicted war criminal.

Both of those things now sit in the same country at the same time, and that's what makes tonight dangerous. A founding hero behind bars, and a capital on fire over it.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.