The special Kosovo court in The Hague will Thursday rule on the appeal of a former rebel commander, sentenced to 26 years for torture and murder in the tribunal's "landmark" first conviction.
Salih Mustafa was found guilty last December of running a makeshift torture centre where he and his men brutally assaulted fellow ethnic Albanians they accused of spying for Serb forces.
Mustafa, 51, was a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that fought a bloody independence war with Serbia in 1998 and 1999.
The court found he had kept detainees in "deplorable conditions unfit for humans" in a barnyard full of animal excrement. Prisoners were given "inadequate food and water", judges said.
Beatings would occur regularly with baseball bats and hatchet handles, prisoners would be burned with hot candle wax and hot irons, and would be subjected to electric shocks on their feet.
Mustafa personally interrogated two detainees, subjecting one to a mock execution and beating him "all over his body".
One victim was left in a "near-to-death" state and denied medical care. He was later found dead, with judges saying this mistreatment and lack of aid had contributed to his death.
- 'Commander Cali' -
Mustafa's actions "effectively equalled a decision to kill the murder victim, as at that stage he was denied any chance of survival," the court judge ruled.
Mustafa, also known by his nom de guerre of "Commander Cali", pleaded not guilty throughout the proceedings at the court, which he compared to a "Gestapo office" after the Nazi secret police.
In addition to his 26-year sentence for arbitrary detention, torture, and murder, Mustafa was also ordered to pay 207,000 euros ($223,000) in compensation to his victims.
Mustafa told the appeals hearing: "I'm convinced that I did not commit any of the crimes that I was charged with by the prosecution."
"The prosecution has the evidence, all the evidence, and knows exactly what happened, and it's not... even that close to the reality that happened," he added.
His lawyers want the convictions quashed or failing that, a re-trial or a reduction in sentence, which they said was "both capricious and manifestly excessive in all the circumstances."
- 'Milestone' judgement -
The high-security court operates under Kosovo law but is based in the Netherlands to shield witnesses from intimidation in Kosovo, where former KLA commanders still dominate political life.
Head Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia described the December 2022 verdict as a "milestone" for the court, which was established in 2015, as it was the "first war crimes judgement of this tribunal".
One of the top prosecutors of the case, Jack Smith, has since gone on to charge former US President Donald Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
The court, known formally as the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, is currently running a war crimes trial against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who resigned following his indictment.
The Kosovo war, which left 13,000 people dead, ended when Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic's forces withdrew after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign.
Although Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, Belgrade does not recognise it and encourages the Serb majority in northern Kosovo to defy Pristina's authority.
