Kosovo former rebel commander ordered to compensate victims

A special international court on Friday ordered a former Kosovo rebel commander to pay $220,000 euros in damages to victims of abuses suffered in 1999 during the Serbian province's struggle for independence.

Pjeter Shala, 61, also known as "Commander Wolf", was sentenced to 18 years behind bars in July for war crimes committed during the tiny country's 1998-99 independence conflict, when separatist KLA rebels fought forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The judges "set the total reparation award for which Mr Shala is liable at 208,000 euros" ($220,000)", Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

"Mr Shala is ordered to pay (damages) as compensation for the harm inflicted" on eight victims, she said.

The total amount comprised individual payments to the eight victims ranging from 8,000 to 100,000 euros, as well as a collective sum of 50,000 euros, the judge said.

Although the "responsibility to pay the compensation lies exclusively with Mr Shala"" the judge said, "he does not appear to have the means to comply with the order".

Kosovo's current Crime Victim Compensation Program "could be one way to execute the Reparation Order", Veldt-Foglia suggested.

However, the maximum sums per victim awarded by the programme would be lower than those awarded by the court, she said.

Shala faced charges of murder, torture, arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of at least 18 civilian detainees accused of working as spies or collaborating with opposing Serb forces in mid-1999.

The judges acquitted him of cruel treatment and he was sentenced on the other three counts.

The judges said Shala was part of a group of KLA soldiers who severely mistreated detainees at a metal factory serving as a KLA headquarters in Kukes, northeastern Albania, at the time.

Shala was tried before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court located in The Hague to prosecute mainly former KLA fighters for war crimes.

They included former KLA political commander Hashim Thaci, who dominated Kosovo's politics after it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and rose to become president of the tiny country.

Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, and has pleaded not guilty.