Judges at a European Union-backed court have convicted a former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter with involvement in the murder of one person and the illegal detention and torture of nearly 20 more during his country’s war for independence from Serbia in 1999.
Former Kosovo Liberation Army member Pjeter Shala attends his trial as judges at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers will hand down a judgment in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, July 16 2024. Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia attends a trial of Former Kosovo Liberation Army member Pjeter Shala at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, July 16 2024.
Pjetër Shala, also known by the nickname “Wolf,” was found guilty of three war crimes – murder, torture and arbitrary detention -- by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court that is part of the Kosovo legal system but based in the Netherlands. He was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. “The panel finds beyond reasonable doubt that Mr. Shala is guilty,” of murder, torture and arbitrary detention, Presiding Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia said. Shala was acquitted of a charge of cruel treatment because the trial panel said the mistreatment was the same as that covered in the torture charge.Veldt-Foglia said Shala was involved in the mistreatment of several ethnic Albanian Kosovars who were perceived as spies or collaborators with Serb forces in May and June 1999.
Veldt-Foglia said the judges received compelling eyewitness accounts of the abuse despite the trial being held against “a backdrop of a persistent climate of witness intimidation.” Most of the people who died in the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops ended the fighting, but tensions between Kosovo and Serbia remain tense.
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