Kosovo's Supreme Court said Tuesday it had cut the war crimes jail sentence handed to a former top guerrilla commander from 10 to eight years and had acquitted another. A statement from the court said Sylejman Selimi was acquitted of having command responsibility over an improvised detention centre in which the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) held prisoners in the late 1990s.
Selimi, who served as the top KLA commander in Kosovo for a few months during the 1998-1999 war against Belgrade, had been convicted of the charge by a lower court in 2015. However his guilty sentence was confirmed for torturing a civilian prisoner at the centre in the guerrilla stronghold of the Drenica region. Owing to his acquittal, "the modified sentence of imprisonment for eight years was imposed," the court said. The court also acquitted Sami Lushtaku, a less senior figure who commanded the Drenica region and who was jailed in 2015 with a 12-year sentence for the murder of a civilian in 1998.
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