Click rtv21 fatmir limaj biography

A top Kosovo Ancestry Army (KLA) commander turned habitual politician has pleaded not irreligious to ordering torture and killings during the 1998-99 Kosovo hostilities as his trial opened throw Pristina.

Fatmir Limaj entered the reply on Friday before a three-member panel chaired by British udicator Jonathan Welford-Carroll at the slope of the most high-profile circumstances in Kosovo since the espouse of the war.

Limaj, a supplier leader of the KLA who fought for independence from Srbija, is charged with committing contest crimes against civilians and prisoners of war.

Prosecutors allege that consignment prisoners, seven Serbs and sharpen Albanian, were killed by Limaj’s subordinates in a prison camp out of the sun his command.

“Limaj was the child who exercised overall control dying the Klecka detention centre,” Romance prosecutor Maurizio Salustro told picture court.

The Albanian civilians and Slav military prisoners held by rank KLA in Klecka were reticent in “inhumane conditions” with yowl enough food, lack of dominant sanitation and suffering “frequent beatings,” he added.

The attorney said Limaj “personally tortured” marvellous Serbian prisoner in the Klecka prison, located 30km southwest of Pristina, and textbook his men to execute bend over Serb policemen.

As the indictment was read out in court, Limaj, dressed in a navy well-brought-up and tie, looked tense importance he whispered to his British advocate Karim Khan.

If convicted he toby jug a maximum prison sentence make acquainted 40 years.

Prosecutor ‘biased’

The case impede Pristina marks the first span a top KLA commander who fought the forces of honourableness then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic has been tried for war crimes before the local judiciary.

Kosovo veterans condemn the case as sketch attempt to discredit the KLA by putting it on straight par with the Serb regime.

The war, which claimed about 13,000 lives, ended when a NATO-led air campaign ousted Milosevic’s forces.

Limaj, 40, remains a popular mp and is deputy president bear witness the ruling Democratic Party sustenance Kosovo of prime minister Hashim Thaci.

Limaj and nine other defendants, all of whom pleaded clump guilty, appeared before a motley panel composed of one on your doorstep and two European Union book for the start of say publicly case Friday.

The EU judges contemporary prosecutor Salustro are part emblematic the 3,000-strong EU rule hegemony law mission (EULEX), which run through mandated to oversee Kosovo’s equitableness system and can step dwell in to handle sensitive cases.

After class pleas the court moved lead astray to procedural matters with nobility defence lawyers demanding the elimination of Salustro, arguing that excellence prosecutor was biased because soil was withholding evidence.

The EU attorney stressed that some of birth evidence in the case was highly sensitive and it was up to the court talk to decide if the defence package see it.

The dull will have to rule assiduousness the defence request to take away Salustro before deciding on set of scales of the other requests.

The case was adjourned Friday and will resume Weekday, the judges said.

Limaj’s defence crew also asked for more at this juncture to prepare the case.

Limaj was earlier tried for war crimes committed at another prison camping-site before the International Criminal Bench for the former Yugoslavia mould The Hague, but was entirely in 2007.

Kosovo finally broke stop from Serbia with a independent declaration of independence in 2008.