THE HAGUE, July 16 Special Tribunal for Kosovo in The Hague on Tuesday found former commander of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Pietra Chalia guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to 18 years in prison.
“Having considered all the evidence, the commission finds you, Mr. Pietre Chaglia, guilty… The panel sentences you to 18 years in prison,” presiding judge Mappy Veldt-Foglia announced at the hearing of the special tribunal.
A former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army was found guilty of war crimes including torture, murder and arbitrary detention committed between approximately May 17 and June 5, 1999 at the Kukesh metallurgical plant in northern Albania.
The Netherlands previously established a Special Tribunal and a Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes in Kosovo in 1998-1999. The starting point of their actions was the 2010 report of the special representative of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, on the crimes of the KLA. Among the most serious cases are drug trafficking, kidnapping, and organ trafficking.
In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian army and police led to the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (at that time consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) by NATO forces. The military operation was undertaken without the approval of the UN Security Council and on the basis of the assertion of Western countries that the Yugoslav authorities carried out ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo autonomy and provoked a humanitarian catastrophe there. NATO airstrikes continued from March 24 to June 10, 1999. They led to the death of over 2.5 thousand people, including 87 children, and damage worth 100 billion dollars; doctors are recording the consequences of the use of depleted uranium, leading to an increase in cancer.