The court, Mr. Rudi said, is “the last chance to finally make our people free.”

In the nearly two decades since it split from Serbia, Kosovo has been governed as a United Nations protectorate and, since February 2008, as an independent state. Throughout that time, it has been dogged by demons left from its violent birth and a culture of impunity left by its failure to come to terms with the fact that some of Kosovo’s most powerful figures have been accused of major crimes.

The special court, which is expected to issue its first indictments soon, is supported by the United States and Europe, Kosovo’s main backers and funders. But it poses risks for them, too, as it will examine crimes directly related to the foundation of the West’s state-building project in Kosovo: its alliance with the K.L.A. during NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999; its failure to disarm the K.L.A. after the war ended; and its inability to protect not only ethnic Serb residents who stayed behind, but also the K.L.A’s ethnic Albanian political rivals.

In a sign that United States support for the court is perhaps flagging under President Trump, the American chief prosecutor, David Schwendiman, stepped down recently after the State Department declined to extend his appointment by two years to enable him to complete his term with the court, despite assurances during the Obama administration that he would be able to do so.