Sabit Geci

Pjeter Shala, who was a Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA fighter during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbian forces, pleaded not guilty to war crimes at a pre-trial initial appearance at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday.

"I understood [the charges] and I find the accusations ridiculous," Shala told the judge.

Pjeter Shala, a former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter, was transferred to a detention centre in The Hague on Thursday evening after the Kosovo Specialist Chambers confirmed a four-count indictment charging him with war crimes.

Shala, 57, who was arrested in Belgium last month, is to make an initial appearance before a pre-trial judge on Monday.

He and others were held by the KLA in the mountains of northern Albania until June 1999. After the war officially ended, he and three other detainees were brought to a building in Prizren in Kosovo. A week later, he managed to escape.

Sabit Geci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA commander, said he was interviewed on Thursday by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecution, which is probing wartime and post-war crimes.

Sanije Rexha and Kushtrim Balaj, both former officials of the Division of Internal and External Control at Kosovo's Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, went on trial for abuse of office at Pristina Basic Court on Monday in a case connected to a major scandal over fraudulent applications for the official status of verified Kosovo Liberation Army war veteran.

Former local KLA commander Sabit Geci has said that the first war crimes indictment against him also contained the name of Hashim Thaci.

This has been reported by the Pristina-based Albanian language daily Bot Sot.

An EU rule-of-law mission judge quashed the three-month temporary release given to convicted Kosovo Liberation Army commander Sabit Geci, who is in Albania for medical treatment.

PRISTINA - Members of the Drenica Group who are charged with war crimes committed against civilians in the prison camp of former (ethnic Albanian paramilitary unit) Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998 have been released pending trial, Pristina media reported.