Former Kosovo rebel commander gets 18 years for war crimes

A former Kosovo rebel commander was found guilty of war crimes on Tuesday (16 July) and sentenced to 18 years behind bars for abuses and murder in 1999 during Pristina’s independence struggle.

Pjeter Shala, 60, also known as “Commander Wolf”, was a local military leader in western Kosovo during the tiny country’s 1998-99 independence conflict when separatist KLA rebels fought forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the court said.

“Having considered all the evidence, the panel finds you, Mr Pjeter Shala guilty… of war crimes,” Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, adding he was sentenced to 18 years.

Drama erupted in the courtroom after Shala — dressed in a black suit, white shirt and purple tie — started loudly talking to the judges during sentencing and had to be silenced by the judge.

He eventually calmed down after speaking briefly to his defence lawyers.

It was not immediately clear whether Shala’s lawyers will appeal, but they have 30 days to do so. He pleaded not guilty.

Shala faced four war crimes charges — torture, arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of at least 18 civilian detainees accused of working as spies or collaborating with opposing Serb forces in mid-1999, as well as one charge of murder.

The judges however acquitted him in the charge of cruel treatment and he was sentenced on the other three counts.

The judges said Shala was part of a group of KLA soldiers who severely mistreated detainees at a metal factory serving as a KLA headquarters in Kukes, northeastern Albania at the time.

There the KLA members held other Kosovar Albanians prison whom they accused of “aiding” enemy Serb forces — “or not being sufficiently sympathetic” to the KLA cause.

The detainees were beaten daily with batons or baseball bats and “lived in constant fear, feeling they may be subject to physical abuse or death at any time,” the judge said.

“Mr Shala was the first to hit the detainees,” Veldt-Foglia said. “Witnesses specifically recalled his brutality.”

‘Terrible agony’

One detainee was shot in the leg and KLA members including Shala refused for him to get medical treatment.

“He died the next day in terrible agony,” the judge said.

The four panel of trial judges reached their verdict based on “credible, consistent… evidence beyond reasonable doubt”.

Shala was being tried before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court located in The Hague to prosecute mainly former KLA fighters for war crimes.

The court was set up after a 2011 Council of Europe report naming KLA fighters as allegedly being involved in crimes.

The report also said there was evidence KLA guerrillas had been part of a human organ harvesting and trafficking network operating in Albania, although an EU task force later said there was no evidence for the claims.

Since its establishment in 2017, the court has investigated several former KLA commanders for possible war crimes.

They include former KLA political commander Hashim Thaci, who dominated Kosovo’s politics after it declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and rose to become president of the tiny country.

Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.

His lawyers have vehemently denied any claims of organ trafficking and Thaci pleaded not guilty.

The Kosovo tribunal handed down its first verdict in December 2022, a 26-year jail term for former rebel commander Salih Mustafa, who ran a torture centre.

That sentence was later reduced on appeal to 22.

Faton Klinaku, acting chairman of the Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans Organisation accused the court of taking “a political approach.”

“Just like in the previous verdicts” against KLA fighters, he posted on Facebook.

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