Xhorxhina BamiPristinaBIRNMay 5, 202313:00A former inmate and former guard from a Kosovo Liberation Army detention site at a metal factory in Kukes in Albania in 1999 told the war crimes trial of an ex-guerrilla about the poor conditions that prisoners had to suffer.
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Pjeter Shala follows his trial via video link from detention in The Hague in March. Photo: Kosovo Specialist Chambers.
Two protected witnesses testified this week at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague at the war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army member Pjeter Shala, alias ‘Commander Wolf’, describing the poor conditions at the Kukes Metal Factory in Albania, where detainees were allegedly held and mistreated by KLA fighters in 1999.
The first witness, a former detainee who testified anonymously from Tuesday to Thursday, told the court that he was not told why he had been detained, and that he and the other prisoners at the metal factory were tortured and held in very bad conditions.
He said that during the war on April 27, 1999, due to “pressure from Serbian paramilitaries” he and his family had been forced to flee from Kosovo to Albania. While in Albania he was detained and sent to the Kukes Metal Factory.
The witness explained that he did not know what happened to people who were taken out of detention for questioning and did not hear any screaming or crying, but said prisoners were beaten in the detention room and even forced to hit each other “as hard as we could”.
He told the court that once he was beaten with a rubber rod in the chest and also sustained a black eye from a punch. He said that two Roma detainees, who were brothers, were also assaulted.
“The Roma brothers were beaten with rubber rods,” the witness said, but claimed he did not know the people who assaulted them.
He said that apart from getting water and going to the toilet, they had no right to go outside, except the Roma brothers, “who were forced to go out to clean the yard”, and when the detainees were taken to be questioned.
He also said that Xhemshit Krasniqi, who is mentioned as a member of a “joint criminal enterprise” along with Shala in the indictment, but has not yet been charged, had visited the detainees once and brought them blankets. The witness claimed that Krasniqi was not aware of the detainees were being tortured and after his visit he was not beaten again.
Shala is on trial for direct involvement in the arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder of prisoners held by the KLA at the Kukes Metal Factory. According to the prosecution, 18 people were detained, interrogated and abused at the factory between approximately May 17, 1999 and June 5, 1999.
The victims, mostly Kosovo Albanians but also some Roma people, were allegedly detained for collaborating with Serbia or opposing the KLA. The prosecution also claims that Shala and other men killed one of the detainees on or around June 4 or 5, 1999. Shala has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On Monday, another anonymous witness testified that he had been a guard at the Kukes Metal Factory, and said that KLA commanders would bring in people suspected of providing provide information to the Serbian police.
He told the court that the detainees were mainly ethnic Albanians from various parts of Kosovo, but also some Roma people.
He described the conditions at the Kukes Metal Factory as very poor.
“Firstly we did not have enough food, sometimes there would be food brought [to the factory] and sometimes not,” he said.
He added that the conditions “were the same for the detainees and the KLA soldiers. When we had food, they also had food, but sometimes we had it and sometimes we did not. The soldiers and the commanders would send food [to the detainees], I personally sent food, but we didn’t always have it.”
The Specialist Chambers are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but are located in the Netherlands and staffed by internationals.
They were set up in 2015 by the Kosovo parliament, acting under pressure from the country’s Western allies, who believe Kosovo’s own justice system is not robust enough to try KLA cases and protect witnesses from intimidation, after previous trials at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal were marred by witness-tampering.
The so-called ‘Special Court’ is highly unpopular in Kosovo, where it is seen as unfairly targeting Kosovo Albanian freedom fighters rather than the Serbian perpetrators of the majority of the war crimes that were committed in 1998-99.
The trial continues on May 19.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
