A witness told the war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Sylejman Selimi, who is now Kosovo’s ambassador to Tirana, that the defendant assaulted him several times.

The protected witness codenamed ‘Witness A’ testified on Tuesday that while he was held at the KLA’s detention centre in Likovc/Likovac in the autumn of 1998, Selimi accused him of collaborating with Serb forces and assaulted him.

“Hey you, Serbian spy, he called to me,” Witness A said.

The witness, who testified via video-link, said he was beaten up several times and still has health problems as a result even today.

“My left shoulder was injured, my right eye was damaged, I cannot hear properly with my right ear. Three ribs on the left and three on the right were broken,” he said.

Selimi is one of seven defendants in the so-called ‘Drenica Group’ war crimes trial accused of involvement in abuses of prisoners at the Likovc/Likovac detention centre.

According to the indictment, Selimi and other defendants “violated the bodily integrity and the health of an undefined number of Albanian civilians” held at the detention centre.

In September 1998, he is alleged to have abused Witness A by “beating him with fists and wooden sticks”.

He is also alleged to have “ordered Witness B, another civilian held in the Likovc detention centre, to repeatedly strike Witness A with a wooden plank and pinched Witness A’s genitals with an iron tool, subsequently dragging him on the floor with it”.

“I still have injuries on my genitals. I am not able to have sex anymore and I call on the [EU rule-of-law mission] prosecution to prove this fact,” Witness A told the court.

The defendants have denied the charges against them.

In May, Selimi was acquitted of separate war crime charges after a court found that he had not assaulted two ethnic Albanian women who were being held at Likovc/Likovac.

The ‘Drenica Group’ trial continues next week.