EU judges jail Kosovo Albanian over war crimes

An EU-led panel of judges yesterday sentenced an ethnic Albanian to 17 years in prison for war crimes, in the first such ruling since the European Union's Eulex mission to Kosovo was established.

The panel of two international and a local judge concluded "beyond reasonable doubt that Gani Gashi committed the crime" he had been charged with in the indictment.

Mr Gashi, 58, was accused of killing an ethnic Albanian "by shooting him in the back" and wounding a second person trying to flee fighting between the ethnic Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army and Serbian forces in central Kosovo in July 1998.

"By this act, Gani Gashi committed the criminal offence of war crime against the civilian population" punishable by Kosovo and international law, the panel said.

The European Union launched its 2,000-strong police, justice and customs mission known as Eulex in December to replace a United Nations mission that had run Kosovo since its 1998-1999 war.

Eulex should help Kosovo in its transition to statehood, after the breakaway territory unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in February last year.