Kosovo's former guerilla commander was discovered responsible on Friday of arbitrarily detaining and torturing prisoners perceived as supporters of Serbia and murdering one in every of them through the 1998-1999 battle.
It was the primary battle crimes conviction by a particular courtroom that was established within the Netherlands to research crimes from the battle.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers sentenced Salih Mustafa to 26 years in jail for the crimes dedicated at a Kosovo Liberation Military (KLA) compound in Zllash/Zlaš in April 1999.
Mustafa was acquitted of 1 cost of mistreating detainees. He had pleaded not responsible to all costs. All victims and witnesses are ethnic Albanians.
Mustafa, carrying a go well with and tie, stood in silence as Presiding Choose Mappie Veldt-Foglia pronounced the verdicts and his sentence. He has 30 days to declare whether or not he plans to attraction.
Mustafa was arrested in 2020 in Kosovo and despatched to the Netherlands to face trial on the EU-backed courtroom, a department of the nation's authorized system arrange particularly to take care of allegations of battle crimes dedicated through the battle.
'Milestone' for the EU-backed courtroom, decide says
The pinnacle of the prosecution workforce welcomed the verdicts.
"With at this time's verdict, the Specialist Chambers has proven that it's a courtroom for and about victims and that there isn't any expiration date on accountability," Appearing Specialist Prosecutor Alex Whiting stated in a press release.
The courtroom has detained Kosovo's former president, Hashim Thaçi, and he's awaiting trial with different suspects on costs that embody homicide, torture and persecution. He denies all allegations.
Thaci served as a guerrilla chief throughout Kosovo's battle for independence earlier than rising to political prominence within the aftermath of the battle that killed greater than 10,000 folks.
His trial, together with three different accused, is anticipated to start in March.
Choose Veldt-Foglia referred to as Friday's judgment a "milestone for the specialist chambers" that might result in "additional reconciliation amongst communities in Kosovo".
Veldt-Foglia stated the trial was centered solely on Mustafa's particular person felony accountability for battle crimes — and burdened that the KLA and the folks of Kosovo weren't focused within the case.
"Nothing may very well be farther from the reality," she stated.
She additionally paid tribute to witnesses who testified within the trial, saying they did so "in a pervasive local weather of concern and intimidation that persists in Kosovo to today."
Mustafa was commander of a KLA guerrilla unit that had its base on the Zllash/Zlaš compound. The victims have been accused by its fighters of collaborating with the ethnic Serbs or not supporting their trigger.
In addition to commanding the unit concerned within the crimes, Mustafa personally mistreated two detainees, the courtroom dominated.
"He subjected one in every of them to a mock execution. (Mustafa) additionally beat him repeatedly throughout his physique," Veldt-Foglia stated.
The homicide sufferer died of a mixture of extreme mistreatment, denial of medical assist and gunshot wounds.
Whereas the courtroom couldn't set up who shot the sufferer, it dominated that the abuse and lack of medical assist "are completely attributable to acts and omissions of Mr Mustafa and his subordinates".
Friday's judgment comes at a time of tense relations between Serbia and Kosovo, its former province.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Thursday demanded that Serbian safety forces be allowed to return to Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.
The West has warned the demand was extremely unlikely to be accepted and would solely stoke tensions in that a part of the Balkans.
NATO peacekeepers — within the nation because the finish of the alliance's 1999 intervention towards the regime in Belgrade — must grant the Serbian military permission to enter Kosovo, in accordance with the Kumanovo Settlement signed on the time.
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