A witness told the trial of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s ‘Drenica Group’ cell, accused of assaulting prisoners during the 1998-99 war, that her husband was seriously beaten at a KLA jail. The protected prosecution witness, codenamed Witness K, told the court in Mitrovica on Monday that her husband suffered severe beatings at the KLA detention centre in Likovc/Likovac in 1998. She said her husband was taken away by two men in camouflage uniforms and when he returned the next month, he was badly injured with broken ribs, blood on his clothes, sore eyes and swelling all over his body.

“I was surprised to see him walk in that condition and return home,” Witness K said.

Pristina’s former ambassador to Albania and Kosovo Security Force ex-commander Sylejman Selimi is on trial for abuses at the Likovc/Likovac detention centre, alongside Sami Lushtaku, the current mayor of Skenderaj/Srbica, and five other former KLA fighters. Witness K said the men who took her husband away were clad in camouflage uniforms and carrying weapons but she could not recognise the insignia they were wearing. After he did not return home, she went looking for him at the Likovc/Likovac detention centre, but did not see him or the defendants there. “I have went every day, with my son and with my brother-in-law, but soldiers at the detention centre in Likovc told us that he was not there,” she said. Her injured husband finally returned home from the detention centre in mid-September 1998, she said. The trial continues on December 9.