A FORMER Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander was today found guilty of war crimes during the 1999 Kosovo war.

Pjeter Shala, nicknamed Wolf, was convicted of murdering one person and illegally detaining and torturing over 20 more. His 18-year jail sentence was passed by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a Netherlands-based court among those set up to deal with the fallout from the war.

Presiding Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia said the court had heard harrowing evidence of KLA abuses despite “a backdrop of a persistent climate of witness intimidation.”

Mr Shala’s victims were Kosovar Albanians suspected of collaborating with Serb forces. The murder victim was shot during interrogation, then denied medical treatment.

The KLA led a separatist insurgency against the rump Yugoslavian state — from which Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had already seceded — in 1999, which was successful after Nato intervened in its favour. Serbia has never recognised the resulting state of Kosovo.