EULEX judges sentence former KLA fighter for 1998 shooting

05/03/2009

EU judges have ruled that an ex-guerilla committed war crimes when he shot at a family that was fleeing through a KLA checkpoint.

(Reuters, AP, AFP, DPA, Deutsche Welle, AKI, B92 - 04/02/09; BBC - 03/02/09)

In the first war crimes trial held under the auspices of EULEX, a man has received a 17-year prison sentence. [EULEX]

A former member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) received a 17-year prison sentence over a shooting incident in 1998, the EU's rule-of-law mission, EULEX, said on Wednesday (March 4th). The announcement came after the completion of the first war crimes trial under the mission's auspices.

A three-member panel, including two international judges and one from Kosovo, found Gani Gashi, 59, "guilty of murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm", EULEX said in a statement.

On July 12th, 1998, Gashi was manning a checkpoint in central Kosovo, set up by the Kosovo Liberation Army -- then a guerilla group waging an armed campaign against the Serbian authorities. A Kosovo Albanian family, attempting to flee the fighting between the militants and Serbian forces, passed through the checkpoint but failed to stop. Gashi then opened fire.

One member of the Obrija family -- the father -- died in the incident. His wife, son and grandchild suffered severe wounds.

"By this act, Gani Gashi committed the criminal offence of war crime against the civilian population, punishable by Kosovo and international law," the judges said in their ruling Tuesday.

The KLA, which began targeting police stations, government offices and other Serbian-run institutions in 1996, was for a time on the US State Department's list of terrorist groups. It was believed to have received much of its funding from narcotics trafficking, and to have maintained links with Osama bin Laden's terror network, al-Qaeda.

According to the NGO Human Rights Watch, KLA members perpetrated "serious abuses", including the abductions and murders of Serb civilians as well as of Kosovo Albanians perceived as collaborators or as uncooperative with the guerilla group's aims.

In one highly publicised case, extremists thought to be linked to the KLA bombed a bus carrying Serbs who were en route to the Gracanica monastery. Twelve were killed and many more injured.

Headed by Yves de Kermabon of France, EULEX officially began operations in Kosovo in early December, replacing UNMIK more than nine years after its launch in June 1999. EULEX staff currently number nearly 2,500, with 1,690 of them international and nearly 800 local.

Gashi's trial was the first in which the members of the mission worked in close co-operation with the Kosovo courts.

"This trial shows that EULEX is serious about investigating and prosecuting war crimes cases whenever they took place, as long as we have enough evidence for a successful prosecution to proceed," chief EULEX prosecutor Theo Jacobs said on Wednesday, welcoming the verdict. "We will do this regardless of the ethnicity of those involved in the crime."

Wednesday also marked the start of a EULEX-led criminal trial in Kosovo's ethnically divided city of Mitrovica. Initially, the court planned to begin the trial on Monday, but around 100 Kosovo Serb protesters blocked the EU judges from entering the courtroom. Resulting security concerns forced postponement of the opening hearing until Wednesday.

The trial reportedly relates to a serious robbery in 2007 involving two Kosovo Serbs.

"The trial started today without any problem," EULEX spokeswoman Kristina Herodes told AFP after Wednesday's session.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17th 2008, despite staunch opposition from Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs.