Date 23–27 November 1999 Deaths 80 | Target Serb civilians | |
Attack type Mass murder, summary executions Perpetrators Gnjilane Group of the Kosovo Liberation Army | ||
The Gnjilane massacre refers to the killing of Serb civilians in Gnjilane by the Albanian paramilitary group Gnjilane Group, a subgroup part of the Kosovo Liberation Army in the period of June–September 1999, during the Kosovo War (1998–99). The remains of 80 Serbs were discovered in mass graves in 1999. The nine ethnic Albanian men, members of KLA's Gnjilane Group, took part in burning the homes and murder of some 80 civilians of Serb and other non-Albanian ethnicities, from June until September 1999. Those were found guilty for murders and sent to prison for a total of 101 years for torturing, raping and murdering Serb and other civilians in the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane.
Trial
Judge Snežana Nikolić-Garotić read the verdict and said that the group also engaged in illegal imprisonment of 153 people, who were later released. The defendants received sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years. The judge said that the court fully accepted the truthfulness of testimonies of witnesses C1 and C2, who were subjected for several days of particularly degrading rape.
The court also believed the testimony of other protected witnesses, including a former KLA member who testified as "Božur 50", she said. Previously, almost two years after their arrest in Preševo, southern Serbia, five defendants were released from custody, while others remained in jail until the end of the trial. The former KLA members indicted in the case are: Ahmet Hasani, Nazif Hasani, Ferat Hajdarij, Kamber Sahiti, Burim Fazli, Faton Hajdari, Samet Hajdari, Selimon Sadiku and Agus Memisi. Fazlija Ajdari, Redžep Aliji and Sacir Saciri were indicted for ordering the crimes. They were still at large and were tried in absentia. They ordered the group to imprison Serbs in the basement of a local boarding school, where the civilians were tortured, mutilated, and killed. The indictment stated that the victims had their nails pulled out, tongues stabbed with knives, lighters hammered into skulls, and were in the end choked with plastic bags and garroted with wires.
To conceal their crimes, the killers dismembered the bodies and threw them into nearby dumpsters, and in Lake Livočko.