The Hague (Reuters) – Appeals judges at the Kosovo tribunal in The Hague have upheld the conviction of a former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla commander who operated a torture prison during Kosovo’s 1998-99 conflict with Serbia. However, they have reduced his sentence.
Salih Mustafa, aged 51, was initially given a 26-year prison sentence in December 2022 after being found guilty of war crimes, including murder and torture. The appeal judges have now confirmed his conviction for the war crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, and murder, but have reduced his prison sentence to 22 years.
This is the first time that appeal judges have ruled on a war crimes verdict by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, the formal name of the tribunal.
The judges found that Mustafa was in charge of a detention center where prisoners, mainly fellow Kosovo Albanians who were political opponents of the KLA, were subjected to daily beatings and torture. One of the detainees did not survive the ordeal.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, based in the Netherlands and staffed by international judges and lawyers, was established in 2015 to handle cases under Kosovo law against former KLA guerrillas.
More than 13,000 people are estimated to have died during the 1998-99 uprising in Kosovo while it was still part of Serbia under then-President Slobodan Milosevic. The conflict came to an end following NATO air strikes on Serbian forces, and Kosovo proclaimed its independence in 2008, although Belgrade does not recognize it as independent.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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