Salih Mustafa

Salih Mustafa also known by the nickname "Cali", (born 1 January 1972) is a former Kosovo Albanian war commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) from the Guerilla BIA unit, which operated in the regions during the Kosovo War in Gollak, Zllash. He was the former founder and Leader of the Nationalist Communist Party National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo and the former intelligence chief of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) until his indictment in The Hague. In 2022, he was convicted of war crimes in Kosovo Special Court and sentenced to 22 years imprisonment.

Early life and education
Mustafa was born on 1 January 1972 in the city of Pristina in Kosovo, then part of Yugoslavia. He completed studies in economics and following the end of the Kosovo War, he served as an adviser in the Kosovar Ministry of Defence.

Kosovo War
During the Kosovo War, Mustafa served with the KLA as a commander of a guerilla unit operating in the Llap region of Kosovo. He was a commander in the Battle of Marec. In 2021, Mustafa was charged for war crimes for acts committed against Kosovo Albanian civilians detained in the detention compound in Zllash in April 1999.

Trial and conviction
Mustafa was indicted for war crimes by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. The indictment charged Mustafa with "arbitrary detention … cruel treatment … torture … and murder" of civilians in 1999, in particular ordering prisoners to be tortured at an internment camp in Zllash/Zlas. Mustafa's trial began on 15 September 2021 and was the first heard by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. Prosecutors said that witnesses would testify at the trial that Mustafa had tortured them or had ordered their torture.

In December 2022, he was convicted of the war crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, and murder, but not convicted of cruel treatment as the panel considered the allegation to have been subsumed into the charge of torture. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

The verdict and sentence were criticized by some Kosovan Albanians.

In December 2023, the "Court of appeals chamber" confirmed his convictions and reduced his sentence to 22 years of imprisonment.