I turned from gynecologist to bloody medical: Teuta Hadri recounts the horror of the war before Special

Teuta Hadri is the next defence witness to Salih Mustaf at Kosovo's Specialised Chambers in The Hague. Hadri, a professional doctor, spoke of the period of March and April 1999, where she said, among other things, on April 16th of that year, she had gone to the village of Zlath in order to help people in need.

Before the court, Hadri has said that on April 1, 1999, Serbian forces had expelled her from her residence in Pristina.

She has said that as a gynecologist, she has wanted to help mothers during childbearing during wartime.

Hadri has claimed to have fled from the column where Serbian forces had been deployed, which, according to her, were intended to expel them towards Albania and that she has headed to the home of Professor Sami Peja.

During the testimony, she said that he stayed in his house for about three days since Professor Sami Peja had passed away.

There, she said a couple had helped her go to the village of Kechkokolo in order to meet with KLA soldiers.

We didn't stay in Kechkolla, they took the soldiers and they handed me over to a area near Keckekolla, I didn't know where but they called him Skiftey, and they searched me, they identified me, and they took all the information they needed,

According to her, the soldiers had sent her to the village of Zlatko for announcing that she needs a physician.

After he called on the basis as he said on the phone, they answered the phone from the ésilini base here because he needs a lot and his place is coming in for health care and the soldiers took me by car and sent me to the area that I didn't know where, when they told Zlatko<1>, she said.

In Zlath, Hadri said he met what he called Commander Seida.

Among other things, Hadri said that she knew exactly that it was April 16 when she went to Zlath, since she held a journal marking everything.

“was April 16, 1999, and time by hour was about three or four in the afternoon. It was a great fate that I kept a war diary, every day I recorded in the diary, whether the crimes, or the few joys we've had in the war that are very few, in seconds, I've marked the daily events so that I wouldn't forget this day that I spent, so I knew it's April 16,”, she said.

She has said she is in Zlath, she is stationed in a small room near the house where, according to her, the headquarters was.

And the house where I was told that it was a little house with four-five steps, I've just seen the look from me, the rest I've never seen. She had four-five steps and had a narrow four-five-foot corridor and on both sides there were two rooms, right and left, and we entered one of those” rooms, she said.

She has said she is in a small room where, according to her, patients were immediately beginning to come and ask for help.

Hadr was the school's site in Zlate, where it was used for medical services, but the need for patients to receive medical services was so great and she had begun to treat them in her room.

Unfortunately, I still didn't get into the room where I wanted to send the clothes, the patients were very much needed for medical help, came in and went into my room, without even asking, without knocking and having strange needs that hit the situation, had kids with meningitis, had patients with cardiopathies, I was transformed by a gynecologist who had been able to help me mothers with a general doctor, and so that the patients didn't wait, and that on the first day of April 16, started entering my own room, Hadri said.

The witness's hearing in the trial of Salih Mustaf will continue after the pause.

Mustafa was arrested on September 24, 2020, with the claim of war crimes.

According to the Specialised Chambers “The confirmed indictment stipulates that approximately between April 1st 1999 and April 19, 1999, at a detention complex in Zlatko, Kosovo, arbitrary detention crimes, cruel treatment and torture against at least six persons” were committed. Also, in the indictment it is said that “in a date between April 19, 1999, or about this date, and about the end of April 1999, a banned “was killed at that location.

Salih Mustafa is staying in custody at The Hague, while in his appearance before the court he has been declared innocent.