Witness at Kosovo Guerrilla’s Trial ‘Tortured in Cowshed’

A protected witness told the trial of Salih Mustafa at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday that he was detained for 17 days in a cowshed in the village of Zllash/Zlas, some 30 kilometres east of Kosovo's capital Pristina, during the war in 1999.

The witness said he was beaten until he fainted, and then his captors "grabbed me by the arms, dragged me and threw me out, and sent me to the cowshed".

"I spent 17 nights in that barn … there was torture every day, and I just waited for someone to take me upstairs and beat me, that is all I remember," the witness said.

He said he was given electric shocks and urinated upon by the fighters on two separate occasions.

"hey tied the wires to my legs and released the electricity," he told the court.

He added that he "was not sexually abused, but they urinated on me. I asked for water and two soldiers came and beat me, laid me on the ground and urinated, telling me: 'Here is the water.'"

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 allegedly committed his crimes against prisoners accused by the guerrilla fighters of collaborating with enemy Serbs or not supporting the KLA's cause. He has pleaded not guilty.

The protected witness also told the court on Monday that detainees in Zllash/Zlas were brought food "once every two to three days", which they shared with each other. He recalled how the detainees only had three blankets and some straw to sleep on.

They were not allowed to use the toilets at the detention facility and did not even have a bucket to use instead...