Kosovo court jails rebel commander in first war crimes verdict

Salih Mustafa was convicted of murder, torture and arbitrary detention during the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)'s 1998-1999 bloody independence war with Serbia

A special Kosovo court in The Hague issued its first-ever war crimes verdict on Friday, sentencing a former rebel commander who ran a makeshift torture centre to 26 years in jail.

Salih Mustafa was convicted of murder, torture, and arbitrary detention during the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)'s 1998-1999 bloody independence war with Serbia.

Judges found that Mustafa and his men had brutally assaulted fellow ethnic Albanians whom they falsely accused of spying for Serb forces, and left one detainee to die.

Head Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia said the verdict was a "milestone" for the court, which was set up in 2015, and "constitutes the first war crimes judgment of this tribunal."

"The panel sentences you to a single sentence of 26 years of imprisonment," she told Mustafa, who wore a grey suit and blue tie and stood impassively during the verdict.

The high-security court operates under Kosovo law but is based in the Netherlands to shield witnesses from intimidation in Kosovo, where former KLA commanders still dominate political life.

The verdict comes at a sensitive time as ethnic tensions have flared again in Kosovo nearly a quarter-century after the war, with attackers exchanging gunfire with police at the weekend.