The convict abused and tortured Kosovo Albanians suspected of fraternizing with the Serbs.
Former Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK/KLA) officer Salih Mustafa50, has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for war crimes at the Hague-based Kosovo Special Tribunal.
Mustafa was accused of, among other things, illegal imprisonment, torture and murder.
According to the court, Mustafa and his men abused and tortured the victims, who were also Kosovo Albanians, but were suspected of fraternizing with Serbs.
At least one of the victims died either from injuries sustained in the beating or from being left to be killed by the advancing Serb forces, the court found.
The Kosovo Special Court and its separate prosecutor’s office were established by an agreement between the EU and the Kosovo administration in 2015. The court operates within the framework of Kosovo law. The judges and other staff are international.
Many Kosovans consider the court created as a result of Western pressure to be biased. Members of the UCK/KLA who fought against the Serb forces are generally regarded as heroes in the Albanian-majority Kosovo, and the country’s current leadership is occupied by former fighters.
Mustafa himself compared the Kosovo Special Court in an earlier court hearing to Nazi Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo.
The war in Kosovo ended in the summer of 1999 with the withdrawal of Serbian forces from the area after the bombings by the military alliance NATO. The country declared independence in 2008. About 13,000 people died in the war.
Mustafa’s sentence was the first by the Kosovo Special Court.
STT-AFP
Read also:
The first trial begins at the Kosovo Special Court