First Witness at Kosovo Guerrilla’s Trial Recalls Brutal Beating

A protected witness told the trial of Salih Mustafa at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday that he was detained in 1999 in the village of Zllash/Zlas, some 30 kilometres east of Kosovo's capital Pristina.

Mustafa is accused of involvement in murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detentions during the Kosovo war in April 1999 at a KLA-run detention compound in Zllash/Zlas, which was allegedly run by a unit that he commanded. He is the first ex-KLA fighter to be tried by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and has pleaded not guilty.

The anonymous witness said he was taken to the detention site in Zllash/Zlas by people who were carrying light weapons.

"After entering, they ordered us to lower our heads. I did not dare to raise my head. I did not know who they were and what they were wearing," the witness told the court.

"They immediately took me out, dragging me for several metres, and there they started beating me with sticks, kicking me… I lost consciousness two or three times. I have a broken finger. I also have broken teeth," he added.

He said that after he was beaten, someone put a pistol to his head.

"I was laid down, one of them took out his gun… I heard it and I knew he was going to kill me. At one moment he pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire. He said they should let me go because 'he is lucky'," the witness said.

Asked by the prosecutor who put the gun to his head, the witness said that it was the person against whom he had come to court to testify.

"That person was this man who is here [Mustafa], the one who is accused. I know he had a red hat," the witness said.

At a previous hearing, the prosecution showed photographs of Mustafa wearing a red beret with an Albanian...