The Court of Appeal in Prishtina published its decision on halving the sentence against a former Serbian officer, from 22 to 11 years in prison.
The Appeals Court states that Darko Tasic was charged by the Special Prosecution with two criminal offenses of War Crimes against the Civilian Population under Article 142 of the Criminal Code of Yugoslavia (CLY) and the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kosovo (CCRK), Article 152.
Tasic was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison over the massacre of Albanian civilians in Krusha e Vogel in March 1999. He was accused of burning dead bodies and disposing them in a nearby river, also of robbing and burning the properties.
His sentence was halved by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
“The first offense charged the accused with looting movable property. The second offense charged him with desecration of corpses, categorized as an act against human dignity, which is categorized only as an act in protocol 2 of the Geneva Convention, but is not foreseen as a separate offense under Article 142 of the CLY, therefore it cannot stand as a separate offense,” Appeal’s statement reads.
The appeal further adds that it is important to know that the maximum sentence provided by law is 20 years, according to the criminal law of Yugoslavia, because that law was in force at the time of the commission of the criminal offense, and as such under the Constitution of Kosovo, the law which is more favorable to the accused must be applied.
“In this case, the court of first instance had imposed a sentence beyond the maximum sentence provided by law, while on the other hand the prosecution has no constitutional or legal right to charge someone with a charge under the law most unfavorable to him,” they clarified.
Relatives of killed and missing persons from Kosovo villages Krusha e Madhe and Krusha e Vogel and other villages protested against the decision on Thursday, at the Justice Palace in Prishtina. They said that such a decision from the Court of Appeals is unacceptable and an insulting act by the justice system.
However, the Court of Appeals noted that “defendant D.T. was not charged with murder, beating or any torture against the civilian population, as it can be said, but only for the acts that were highlighted above”.
109 Albanian men, aged 13- 72 were machine- gunned by Serbian forces in Krusha e Vogel during the war in Kosovo. Twenty of them managed to escape.
During the trial, witnesses testified that they have seen Tasic and his father carrying the corpses by an orange truck, setting it on fire and pushing it into the Drini River.
