The Appeals Panel at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday reduced the 2024 sentence handed to former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, fighter Pjeter Shala, known as “Commander Wolf”, by five years, from 18 to 13 years.

The court upheld his conviction for arbitrary detention, torture and murder of at least 16 wartime detainees and the murder of one prisoner at the Kukes Metal Factory in Albania, which the KLA used as a detention centre during the war in neighbouring Kosovo.

The court “annuls the sentence of 18 years imprisonment for Mr Shala and assigns a sentence of 13 years … taking into account the time spent in detention,” judge Kai Ambos announced.

Shala has been in detention in the Hague since March 2021, when he was arrested in Antwerp, Belgium. The judge said that Shala will remain in detention in The Hague “until the finalization of measures of his transfer to the state where he will finish his sentence”.

In a first-instance verdict, in July 2024, the court upheld prosecution claims that Shala had participated in mistreating a murder victim. It also found Shala “individually criminally responsible as part of a joint criminal enterprise” in the arbitrary detention, torture and murder of prisoners held at the Kukes Metal Factory. He had pleaded not guilty on all counts.

The Trial Panel found that at least 18 people, mainly Kosovo Albanians, were detained, interrogated and physically and psychologically abused at the factory between around May 17, 1999 and June 5, 1999.

But the Appeals Panel found that “the Trial Panel had failed to give sufficient weight … to the fact that he [Shala] did not have a commanding role in relation to … the crime of murder. The Appeals Panel also found that the sentence imposed by the Trial Panel was out of reasonable proportion to comparable cases”.

It noted that, concerning five other individuals found to have been mistreated at the Kukes Metal Factory, “no in-court testimony had been provided to support their mistreatment, or that they had been detained during the period when the serious mistreatment took place.

“For this reason, the Appeals Panel has reversed the torture conviction as it related to these five individuals, while affirming Shala’s conviction for the torture of at least 13 other individuals”, it added.

Meanwhile, the Appeals Panel reversed the arbitrary detention conviction for other two individuals, saying the Prosecution had failed to provide evidence.

In a press release, Special Prosecutor Kimberly West welcomed the judgment, “which reinforces the rule of law and contributes to achieving accountability for serious crimes and justice for Mr Shala’s victims”. “I note the revision of the sentence imposed and the other findings of the Court. My office will be reviewing the full judgment carefully in the coming days,” West said.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which are trying former KLA guerrillas for wartime and post-war crimes, are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but are located in The Netherlands and staffed by internationals.

The Chambers were established under pressure from the country’s Western allies who said they suspected that Kosovo’s justice system was not robust enough to try KLA cases and protect witnesses from intimidation. However, proceedings in The Hague have been marred by claims of witness intimidation.

Many Kosovo Albanians believe the court is ethnically biased and denigrates the KLA’s war against Serbian repression.