EU-backed court convicts former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter of murder and abuse during 1999 war

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges at a European Union-backed court convicted a former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter Tuesday 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.

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.

At his trial that opened in February last year, Shala insisted he was innocent and pleaded not guilty to all four charges.

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. The victims were detained and abused at a makeshift detention center at a metal factory in Kukёs, northern Albania.

“The murder victim died while still in detention ... as a result of being shot, and subsequently being denied appropriate medical treatment, and the other detainees were forced to witness his terrible agony before he died,” the judge said.

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.”

Specialist Prosecutor Kimberly West, who leads the office that indicted Shala, welcomed the verdicts.

“Achieving accountability for serious crimes — including against those, such as Mr. Shala, who had previously avoided the jurisdiction of Kosovo’s courts for several years — is an important step for the rule of law,” West said in a statement.

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.