Baluarte
06-11-2013, 12:45 AM
A court in Pristina has convicted the “Llapi Group” of former Kosovo Liberation Army members of war crimes against civilians during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbian forces, Balkan Insight reports.
Latif Gashi, former head of KLA intelligence and now a member of parliament from the ruling Kosovo Democratic Party, was sentenced to six years in prison. Rrustem Mustafa and Nazif Mehmeti, also former KLA commanders, were sentenced to four and three years respectively.
http://www.tol.org/get_img?NrArticle=23812&NrImage=1
Latif Gashi
The court found them guilty of “order[ing] and participat[ing] in the beating and torture of Kosovo Albanian civilians detained in the detention center located at Llapashtica/Lapastica, in an attempt to force those detainees to confess to acts of disloyalty to the KLA from October of 1998 until late April 1999,” Balkan Insight reports.
In April, three anonymous witnesses gave testimony about the abuse of their relatives by the three men.
Witness C said Mehmeti and Gashi threatened her when she met her husband at their office in February 1999, two months after he had been taken to the detention center. She said her husband was unable to walk without support.
“Nazif Mehmeti and Latif Gashi pointed the finger at me, saying: ‘We have the right to liquidate you,” the witness said, according to an April Balkan Insight account.
The UN mission in Kosovo began investigations into the Llapi Group case in 2001 and 2002. The guilty verdicts from a 2005 trial were overturned due to a failure to prove the three men’s complicity “beyond all doubt,” Balkan Insight reports. The men also appealed the guilty verdicts from a 2009 trial, and the Supreme Court ordered a partial retrial in 2011.
The three men plan to appeal this guilty verdict as well. Gashi said, “The criminals are the ones we put in detention and not us,” Balkan Insight reports.
Latif Gashi, former head of KLA intelligence and now a member of parliament from the ruling Kosovo Democratic Party, was sentenced to six years in prison. Rrustem Mustafa and Nazif Mehmeti, also former KLA commanders, were sentenced to four and three years respectively.
http://www.tol.org/get_img?NrArticle=23812&NrImage=1
Latif Gashi
The court found them guilty of “order[ing] and participat[ing] in the beating and torture of Kosovo Albanian civilians detained in the detention center located at Llapashtica/Lapastica, in an attempt to force those detainees to confess to acts of disloyalty to the KLA from October of 1998 until late April 1999,” Balkan Insight reports.
In April, three anonymous witnesses gave testimony about the abuse of their relatives by the three men.
Witness C said Mehmeti and Gashi threatened her when she met her husband at their office in February 1999, two months after he had been taken to the detention center. She said her husband was unable to walk without support.
“Nazif Mehmeti and Latif Gashi pointed the finger at me, saying: ‘We have the right to liquidate you,” the witness said, according to an April Balkan Insight account.
The UN mission in Kosovo began investigations into the Llapi Group case in 2001 and 2002. The guilty verdicts from a 2005 trial were overturned due to a failure to prove the three men’s complicity “beyond all doubt,” Balkan Insight reports. The men also appealed the guilty verdicts from a 2009 trial, and the Supreme Court ordered a partial retrial in 2011.
The three men plan to appeal this guilty verdict as well. Gashi said, “The criminals are the ones we put in detention and not us,” Balkan Insight reports.