A former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is to go on trial for war crimes in the Hague this month, the special international court said on Friday.
Pjeter Shala will be tried from February 21 on four counts of war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 independence conflict in Kosovo, when separatists KLA rebels fought forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Shala, who became known by the nickname Commander Wolf, was a local military commander with the ethnic Albanian KLA during the war, which followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and left 13,000 people dead.
He is accused of crimes against civilians who were being held captive by the KLA at the Kukes Metal Factory in Albania.
He faces charges of arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder.
Shala will be tried before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), a Kosovan court located in The Hague to try former KLA fighters for war crimes.
It is financed by the European Union and has international judges.
Shala was arrested in Belgium in 2021 and has denied wrongdoing.
The court has investigated several former KLA commanders for possible war crimes.
They include former KLA political commander Hashim Thaci, who dominated Kosovo politics after its independence from Serbia in 2008 and rose to become president of the tiny country.
Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes charges including organ trafficking.
In December, the Kosovo tribunal in the Hague handed down its first verdict, a 26-year jail term for former rebel commander Salih Mustafa, who ran a torture centre.