Hague Prosecution Demands 28 Years for Kosovo’s ‘Commander Wolf’

Kosovo ex-guerrilla Pjeter Shala looks on as he stands trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Netherlands, February 21, 2023. Photo EPA-EFE/PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW / POOL

In its closing statement on Monday, the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, SPO, in the war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army member, Pjeter Shala, known as “Commander Wolf”, asked the trial chamber in The Hague to give the defendant “a single sentence of 28 years in prison” for war crimes in May-June 1999 committed at the Kukes Metal Factory in Albania.

“The defence describes the accused as a simple KLA soldier who helped his people to fight at the front. The evidence in this case before us, however, proves that he was certainly another person: a person who made 18 people victims of arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and the murder of one of them,” said prosecutor Eva Wyler.

Shala is accused of direct involvement in the arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder of prisoners held at the Kukes Metal Factory, which the prosecution claims was used by the KLA as a detention centre.

According to the indictment, 18 people were detained, interrogated and abused at the factory between around 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 for opposing the KLA.

Shala has pleaded not guilty to all charges

During his closing statement, prosecutor Filippo De Minicis said that Shala deserves a severe punishment because “the contribution he made to these crimes was considerable. He exercised a terrible violence against the terrorized victims”.

“Beating people who cannot defend themselves is not war, it is an unjustifiable cowardly act of violence. The accused did nothing to relieve the pain. At the very least, he could have walked away while these atrocities were happening, but he didn’t. He beat one after another and time has not changed his character,” the prosecutor said.

The indictment names two other KLA ex-fighters, Sabit Geci and Xhemshit Krasniqi, as members of a “joint criminal enterprise” along with Shala, although neither has been charged.

The prosecution claims that Shala and the other men killed one of the detainees on or around June 4 or 5, 1999.

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 suspected Kosovo’s own justice system was 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 court has issued one war crimes verdict, against the commander of the KLA Llap Operation Zone, Salih Mustafa, for the arbitrary detention, torture and murder. In December 2023, the Specialist Chambers Appeal Panel reduced Mustafa’s prison sentence  from 26 to 22 years.

The closing statements of Shala’s defence will continue on Tuesday.