Editing Kosovo War Crimes Tribunal Arrests First Suspect Former KLA Leader

<br>By Stephanie van den Berg<br> <br>THE HAGUE, Sept 24 (Reuters) - A former insurgent commander, Salih Mustafa, has been arrested in Kosovo and transferred to the Kosovo war crimes tribunal's detention center in the Netherlands, the court said on Thursday.<br> <br>Mustafa was a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict.<br><br>The indictment charges Mustafa, [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/tour-trung-quoc-nam-ninh-truong-gia-gioi-phuong-hoang-co-tran-6-ngay.html kynghidongduong.vn] 48, with four counts of war crimes including the beating and torture of at least six people and one murder.<br> <br>According to the indictment, which was made public after his arrest, [http://www.blogher.com/search/apachesolr_search/Mustafa%20led Mustafa led] a guerilla unit which ran a detention facility and interrogation site where inmates were beaten, tortured, given electric shocks and [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/tours/tour-trung-quoc-nam-ninh-truong-gia-gioi-phuong-hoang-co-tran-6-ngay.html tour phượng hoàng cổ trấn] urinated on.<br> <br>According to prosecutors, Mustafa not only oversaw the violence but also personally participated in beatings and told one detainee he was a spy and was to be killed.<br> <br>"Following his arrest by the specialist prosecutor´s office on 24 September 2020, Salih Mustafa was transferred to the detention facilities of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on 24 September 2020," the Hague-based tribunal said in a statement.<br> <br>Under international law, Mustafa is presumed innocent until proven guilty.<br><br>A date for his initial appearance in court has not been set, but he is expected to be brought before a judge in the next few days.<br> <br>In June, the tribunal's prosecutor released an indictment against Kosovo President Hashim Thaci for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including nearly 100 murders.<br> <br>The indictment has yet to be confirmed by a judge.<br><br>Thaci, who denies wrongdoing, traveled to The Hague in July to meet with prosecutors.<br> <br>The Specialist Chamber was set up in The Hague in 2015 to handle cases of alleged crimes by KLA guerrillas during the war that led to Kosovo´s independence from Serbia a decade later.<br> <br>Local efforts to investigate alleged KLA war crimes have so far been foiled by widespread intimidation in the state where clan loyalties run deep and former rebels are [http://search.ft.com/search?queryText=lionised lionised].<br> <br>The special prosecutor's office is based in the Netherlands partly to help ensure protection of witnesses.<br> <br>The Specialist Chamber is governed by Kosovo law but is staffed by international judges and prosecutors.<br> <br>Other suspects from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s have been tried at the now-defunct U.N.<br><br>Yugoslav Tribunal. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Fatos Bytyci and Toby Sterling; Editing by Toby Chopra and Angus MacSwan)<br>