A Kosovo Liberation Army doctor testified at the trial of the KLA’s Drenica Group that one of the accused was in hospital at the time that a Serb policeman was murdered.
Behar Mustafa, Petrit Collaku | 10 Mar 15 | BIRN | Mitrovica, Pristina
Defence witness Hysen Hyseni, a former KLA doctor, told the court in Mitrovica on Tuesday that one of the 15 former Drenica Group guerrillas on trial, Sabit Geci, was injured at the time when Serb police officer Ivan Bulatovic was killed in June 1998.
Geci is accused of killing the policeman in the village of Likovc/Likovac alongside another former member of the Drenica Group, Sahit Jashari.
Hyseni said that he assisted civilians and KLA fighters during the conflict in Kosovo by performing surgery and that one of the places he visted most was Likovc/Likovac, where there was a KLA hospital.
Hyseni said that Geci was seriously injured during fighting in 1998 and was being treated at the hospital in the village.
“His rehabilitation took place from April to September 1998 and based on the orthopaedic doctor’s instructions, he was supposed to lie down because of the many injuries he had,” Hyseni said.
Hyseni added that patients at the hospital suffered because they had to be transferred from one place to another due to attacks by Serb forces.
The former Drenica Group fighters, including Kosovo’s Ambassador to Albania, Sylejman Selimi, and the mayor of Skenderaj/Srbica, Sami Lushtaku, are accused of torturing and mistreating civilian prisoners held at the KLA’s detention centre in Likovc/Likovac in 1998. They have all pleaded not guilty.
Geci has already been convicted of murder in a separate case, after admitting killing an ethnic Albanian man in June 1998 in Skenderaj/Srbica.
