Kosovo tribunal reduces sentence for former KLA member

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THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Appeals judges at the Kosovo tribunal in The Hague confirmed the conviction of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) member Pjeter Shala for war crimes, but reduced his sentence to 13 years in prison, the court said on Monday.

    Shala was initially convicted in 2024 of war crimes including torture, murder and arbitrary detention, committed as he ran a makeshift prison during the 1998-99 Kosovo uprising against Serbian troops. People considered to be spies or collaborators with Serbs were abused at the facility and at least one man was killed, the judges found.

On appeal, judges reversed several convictions for torture and arbitrary detention in relation to some victims, but confirmed convictions for the same war crimes when related to other victims.

They also found the lower chamber had not properly taken into account the fact that Shala was not in a commanding role for the murder charge, and reduced his sentence by five years.

More than 13,000 people are believed to have died during the 1998-99 Kosovo uprising against Serbian troops, led by then-president Slobodan Milosevic. The former Serbian province eventually declared independence in 2008, which Belgrade does not recognise.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a war crimes court sitting in the Netherlands and staffed by international judges and lawyers, was set up in 2015 to handle cases under Kosovo law against fighters of the KLA.

It is separate from a U.N. tribunal, also located in The Hague, which prosecuted nationals from the former Yugoslavia over the 1990s Balkan wars, including several Serbian officials and one former KLA member for crimes committed in the Kosovo conflict.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Sharon Singleton)