The Former Commander Of The Kosovo Liberation Army Was Sentenced To 26 Years In Prison, First War Crime Decision

Salih Mustafa during the trial. (Screenshot of YouTube Channel Kosovo Specialist Chambers)

JAKARTA - The court in The Hague, the Netherlands sentenced former guerrilla commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army Salih Mustafa on Friday.

Salih Mustafa was arrested in 2020 and charged with four counts of war crimes: murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detention.

Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia handed down a panel ruling at Kosovo Specialist Chambers, launching The National News December 16.

It was the court's first decision to specifically address war crimes charges since it was formed in 2015.

The former commander ran a torture prison during the conflict with Serbia from 1988 to 1989. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Prosecutors said Mustafa, nicknamed the Cali Commander, and his men were "torture and torture" at least six fellow Albanian ethnic Kosovo who were accused of cooperating with Serbia, and detaining prisoners in a "gloomy condition" at the village cage.

The Cali commander personally participated in the beatings, they said. Twenty-nine witnesses testified for 52 days in court.

In May, the court jailed two Kosovo residents for intimidating witnesses, and said the couple disclosed details including the names of hundreds of witnesses in September 2020.

"Two witnesses were forced to move as a result of their actions," said the judge.

The court operates under Kosovo's law but is based in the Netherlands to protect witnesses from intimidation in Kosovo, where former KLA commanders have long dominated political life.

It has brought charges of war crimes against senior members of the KLA, the Albanian ethnic guerrilla group, including former president Hashim Thaci.

The Kosovo War, which killed 13,000 people, ended when Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's troops withdrew after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign.