Kosovo thug in The Hague: “I plead not guilty”
The former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), Salih Mustafa, did not admit a single count of the indictment of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office of the Special Court for Kosovo.
The separatist is accused of a number of war crimes against Serbian civilians committed between April 1 and 19, 1999, in Zlaša, Kosovo, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“I do not plead guilty,” Mustafa said, declaring that his fight was a “moral” cause, and also called on the Special Court to “not give in to pressure” - from whose, he did not specify.
The approved indictment against Mustafa alleges that he is guilty of unlawful deprivation of liberty, ill-treatment, and torture of at least six people in the Kosovo village of Zlaš, where there was a makeshift prison for Albanian separatists. It is also indicated that at least one inmate of this underground prison was killed.
Let us recall that 48-year-old Mustafa, also known as “commander Kalya,” himself appeared on September 24 in The Hague, where, by order of a judge, he was arrested after the indictment was approved. He was in custody until the start of the trial.
Mustafa was first questioned by the Special Court in The Hague in November last year. He had been a member of armed Albanian separatist gangs since 1988, and in 1993, Yugoslav justice sentenced him to five years in prison for inciting an armed rebellion.
Having been released early, Mustafa, starting in 1997, organized the Albanian UCK gangs in Pristina, Obilic, Gnjilan and Kamenica, created special sabotage terrorist units, and subsequently became the commander of the “Lab operational zone”.
After the war, he was head of intelligence for the Kosovo Security Forces and intelligence adviser to the ex-“Prime Minister” of Kosovo, also a former warlord, Agim Ceku.
Kosovar Thug in The Hague: "I Plead Not Guilty"