War crimes in the Kosovo War

A protected witness told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Tuesday that he saw five or six people beating a prisoner who was being held in an improvised detention facility in the village of Zllash/Zlas, some 30 kilometres east of Kosovo's capital Pristina, during the war in 1999.

The leader of the KLA War Veterans' Association, Hysni Gucati, and his deputy Nasim Haradinaj insisted on Monday that they are innocent of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation, and denounced the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which was set up to prosecute crimes committed during the Kosovo war.

The indictment claims that in the months prior to the leak, the two men made statements calling witnesses who collaborated with the Specialist Chambers "liars, collaborators, and traitors" in an attempt to "undermine and obstruct" the court.

A protected witness told the trial of Salih Mustafa at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday that he was detained in 1999 in the village of Zllash/Zlas, some 30 kilometres east of Kosovo's capital Pristina.

The Victims' Participation Office of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers said in its opening statement at the first trial held at the Hague-based court on Wednesday that the alleged victims of Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA fighters during the 1998-99 war have been intimidated into silence for decades.

Former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA unit commander Salih Mustafa went on trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers on Wednesday, charged with involvement in murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detentions during the Kosovo war in April 1999.

"Today marks a milestone for this institution and our work," prosecutor Jack Smith said in his opening statement on Wednesday.

Kosovo police arrested seven members of the Social Democratic Party of Kosovo, PSD, after protesters tried to disrupt an event in Pristina organised by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which they accuse of denigrating the Kosovo Liberation Army's wartime struggle against Serbian forces.

Due to their publication, officials of the Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans' Association Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj were arrested and accused of undermining the work of the court.

On Monday, Kosovo's Pristina Basic Court sentenced a former Kosovo Serb policeman, Zoran Vukotic, to ten years in prison for rape and for participating in the expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians during the war in Kosovo in 1999.

The ruling was called historic because it the first time someone had been convicted in Kosovo of sexual abuse during the 1998-9 war.

Kosovo's Special Prosecution said in a statement on Wednesday that a suspect identified only by the initials M.A. has been detained "for the criminal offence 'war crimes against the civilian population'".

The prosecution said that the person who was arrested, an ethnic Albanian who holds Serbian citizenship, will soon appear before a pre-trial judge.