PRISTINA: A European court sentenced Friday a former member of Kosovo's reserve police force to six and a half years for torturing and beating ethnic Albanian civilians during the late 1990s war.
The court found Zoran Vukotic guilty of physical abuse of civilians held in the Smrekonice prison, 35 kilometres (22 miles) northwest of Pristina.
Prisoners were held "in inhuman conditions" and "subjected to inhuman treatment" such as frequent beatings and torture in which Vukotic was the "most dangerous of all" policemen, the court said.
Vukotic was arrested in 2016 in Montenegro on an international arrest warrant and extradited to Kosovo.
The 45-year-old, who pleaded not guilty, can appeal the verdict.
The crimes took place in May 1999 and the victims were military-age men who were previously separated from women and children to be taken to the prison.
They were part of systematic reprisals led by Serbian forces under the command of then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic against Kosovo ethnic Albanians, who supported their independence-seeking guerrilla forces.
The 1998-1999 war ended after a NATO air campaign lasting three months that ousted Serbian forces from Kosovo.
After almost a decade-long UN administration, Pristina declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
Months after, the European Union launched in the territory a rule of law mission (EULEX), whose judges and prosecutors handle sensitive court cases.
A special court was established in The Hague to investigate and prosecute crimes allegedly committed by ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) figures during the 1998-1999 war.
The first indictments are expected to be unveiled by the end of the year.
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