Kosovo war crimes tribunal sentences former KLA member to 18 years in prison | News

Judges have ruled that Pjeter Shala committed war crimes during the Kosovo uprising against Serbian troops in 1998-1999.

The judges of the Kosovo Tribunal in The Hague have sentenced former member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Pjeter Shala, to 18 years in prison for war crimes committed during the Kosovo uprising against Serbian troops in 1998 and 1999.

Shala was convicted of war crimes, including torture, murder and arbitrary detention, while running a makeshift prison where people were abused and at least one man was killed.

Shala maintained his innocence throughout the trial. His lawyers argued that he was neither present nor participated in the commission of the crimes.

However, the judges ruled that he was “beyond reasonable doubt” part of a criminal group that arrested and severely mistreated at least 18 people whom they believed to be spies or collaborators of the Serbs.

“After examining all the evidence, the panel finds you, Mr Pjeter Shala, guilty of war crimes,” Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia said on Tuesday before the Kosovo Special Chambers in The Hague.

Shala, 60, also known as “Commander Wolf,” was a local military leader in western Kosovo during the conflict.

Drama erupted in the courtroom when Shala – dressed in a black suit, white shirt and purple tie – began speaking loudly to the judges during the verdict and had to be silenced by the judge.

He finally calmed down after a brief conversation with his defense attorneys, who argued that he was neither present nor involved in the commission of the crimes.

The Kosovo Special Chambers, a war crimes court based in the Netherlands and staffed by international judges and lawyers, was established in 2015 to try cases under Kosovo law against KLA fighters.

It is separate from a UN tribunal, also based in The Hague, that tries nationals of the former Yugoslavia in connection with the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Among them are several Serbian officials and a former KLA member who have been charged with crimes committed in the Kosovo conflict.

More than 13,000 people are said to have died during the 1998/99 Kosovo uprising against Serbian troops under then-President Slobodan Milosevic. The former Serbian province finally declared its independence in 2008, a step that Belgrade did not recognize.