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Saleh Mustafa is accused of crimes committed by Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army rebels during the war to leave Serbia.
The first case of the special court investigating the crimes of the independence conflict in Kosovo from 1998-1999 began in The Hague, and a former rebel leader faced a trial for war crimes including murder and torture.
Salih Mustafa was charged with arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture of at least 6 people, and war crimes of 1 murder in a detention facility in Zllash, Kosovo in April 1999. The victim was accused by the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters of cooperating with others according to his indictment, with the Serbs or not supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army.
His trial opened on Wednesday, and the presiding judge of the Kosovo Experts Chamber, Mappie Veldt-Foglia, provided the history of the legal proceedings before announcing the charges against Mustafa.
At the beginning of the trial, 49-year-old Mustafa said: “I do not plead guilty to any charges brought by the Gestapo office.” He compared the war crimes court to the secret police of Nazi Germany.
He was wearing a red T-shirt in the courtroom and listened to the simultaneous interpretation of the proceedings through the headset on his left ear.
Mustafa was arrested in Kosovo a year ago and sent to the Netherlands to be tried by the Kosovo expert court supported by the European Union.
The prosecutor is making a three-hour opening statement.
They said that Mustafa and his men “cruelly tortured” the Kosovo Albanian compatriots, and they accused them of cooperating with the Serbs in Zllash, a village east of the capital Pristina.
“These people are not enemies of Kosovo, nor are they spies,” senior prosecutor Jack Smith told the court in his opening statement.
“Their only crime is to have a different political view from the Kosovo Liberation Army and its senior leaders.”
Chambers
The trial is the first to begin at the Court of Hague, which operates in accordance with Kosovo law and aims to deal with allegations of war crimes committed by the Albanian rebels in the Kosovo Liberation Army in the bloody clashes that fought to leave Serbia.
It was established six years ago, according to a 2011 report by the European Commission, a human rights agency, which included accusations that Kosovo Liberation Army fighters had trafficked human organs taken from prisoners and killed fellow Serbs and Albanians who they believed were collaborators.
Other former rebel commanders in custody awaiting trial include former Kosovo President Hashim Thach, who resigned last year to defend himself against war crimes charges in The Hague.
The mission of the court is to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo from 1998 to 2000 or related to the Kosovo conflict.
Most of the people killed in the Kosovo war were ethnic Albanians. NATO’s 78-day air strikes against Serbian forces ended the fighting.
Several Serbs have been indicted by the former United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for atrocities in the Kosovo war.
Mustafa was accused of personal involvement in arbitrary detention, cruel treatment and torture, and was responsible for the murder. He was also accused of participating in all four crimes as a member of a “combined criminal enterprise.”
The activities of the court are highly sensitive, because the former rebel commander still dominates Kosovo’s political life and is regarded by many as a hero.
“They can condemn Mustafa and others 100 times, but to me, they are heroes who bravely stood up against Serbia,” Adem Idrizi, a 65-year-old pensioner from Pristina, told France. Xinshe.
Others believe that the arbitral tribunal can complete its work.
“I believe that international judges will determine the truth. I only believe in evidence,” said Blerta Hyseni, a 24-year-old law graduate.
International tensions regarding Kosovo continue to this day. The United States and most Western countries recognize Kosovo, but Belgrade and its allies Russia and China do not.
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