TIRANA, December 17 – Kosovo’s former guerilla commander has been found guilty of arbitrarily detaining and torturing prisoners perceived as supporters of Serbia and murdering one of them during the 1998-1999 conflict.
It was the first war crimes conviction by a special court that was established in the Netherlands to investigate crimes from the conflict.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers sentenced on Friday Salih Mustafa to 26 years in prison for the crimes committed at a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) compound in Zllash/Zlaš in April 1999, reported euronews.com .
Mustafa was acquitted of one charge of mistreating detainees. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.The defendant told the court on Wednesday that he understands the indictment, “but there is nothing real about it”.
“I am not guilty of anything that this Gestapo is blaming me for,” Mustafa added.
He pleaded not guilty at a pre-trial hearing in October 2020.
All victims and witnesses are ethnic Albanians.
Mustafa, wearing a suit and tie, stood in silence as Presiding Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia pronounced the verdicts and his sentence. He has 30 days to declare whether he plans to appeal.
The so-called ‘special court’ is widely resented by Kosovo Albanians who see it as an insult to the war for liberation of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK). /Argumentum.al
