Thewesternbalkans
Following the information of different media agencies, Mr. Pjeter Shala (a former Kosovo rebel commander) was sentenced on 16 July to 18 years of prison for committed war crimes in 1999 during Pristina’s independence struggle.
Mr. Shala is known as “Commander Wolf”. He was a local military leader in western Kosovo during the country’s 1998-99 independence conflict.
Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague that the court found Mr. Shala guilty and he was sentenced to 18 years.
Mr. Shala pleaded not guilty.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Shala’s lawyers will appeal, but they have 30 days to do so.
Mr. 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.
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.”
Mr. 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.
It was also reported that 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.
Faton Klinaku, acting chairman of the Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans Organisation accused the court of taking “a political approach.”
Comments: 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 country.
Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.
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.
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The Albanian military leader Pjeter Shala has not been tried for crimes against the Serbian population in Kosovo.
