Until last Sunday, Comdt Sali Mustafa was a guerrilla fighter - a terrorist to the Serbs - plotting the assassination of Serbs from many hideouts in the Kosovan capital.
Today, Sali holds court in the Zenel Hajdini School in the Albanian neighbourhood of Vranjevac. Dozens of locals wait in the dusty road outside to pay him homage. Children line the path to the school door with rose petals. The red Albanian flag, with its black two-headed eagle, flies from the roof of the school, and a British army major is told to wait in the sun while Sali talks to us.
Six young men, wearing red and black armbands, keep visitors at bay. Guerilja BIA is embroidered on the armbands. "This is secret," one of them says with a scowl when I ask what the letters mean.
BBut an Albanian woman tell me they stand for the first names of Albanian "martyrs" killed in 1987 and 1988; B is for Bahri, I is for Ilir and A is for Agron.
"Please don't tell them I told you," she says. "I know these young men - most of them did not finish elementary school. They protected a lot of Albanians, and I am grateful for that. But they hate authority and I am afraid they'll make problems."
Balding, with glasses and several days growth of beard, the 29-year-old in a Puma tracksuit and runners does not look like a guerrilla leader. Yet the youths in the red and black armbands show a special reverence to Sali.
Seated beneath an image of the 14th-century Albanian rebel, Skanderbeg, he tells us: "I am the commandant of guerrilla unit Pristina. We were here during the war because our duty was to fight the Serbs from behind the lines. We have roles for each unit, as guerrillas do all around the world."
He is meticulously respectful of the KLA hierarchy, explaining that he is under the authority of the Llap regional command.
Sali carried out what he calls his "last action" shortly before the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, accepted an EU-Russian-NATO peace plan on June 3rd. "It was in the Vresta neighbourhood that we assassinated Zoran Jovanovic Zoki, a high-ranking Serb intelligence officer," he boasts, dragging on one of the Dunhill cigarettes he chain smokes.
"Serb forces were living on either side of the road, yet we managed to shoot him 10 metres from his front door. There were three of us - me and two others. The whole street was full of Serbs. They started shooting from both sides and we escaped through the city sewers.
"It was up to here," he says, holding his hand under his chin and laughing. "We were so dirty. We hadn't planned to escape that way but it was the only way out. This is nothing compared to what our brothers did on the front line, attacking tanks with Kalashnikovs."
While studying history at Pristina University, Sali joined the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo, a group banned by the Belgrade government. He spent four years, from 1993 until 1997, in Pristina, Mitrovica and Dubrava prisons.
Revenge attacks by Albanians against Serbs are proving to be one of the most serious problems facing NATO in Kosovo.
The previous day, Sali's men killed three Serb soldiers a few blocks away from the school where we spoke to him.
The KLA commander told us the Serbs were looting Albanian homes and shooting. However, the British soldiers who were sent to retrieve the bodies said the vehicles packed with household goods looked staged. One of the Serbs had the back of his head blown off, one was shot in the chest and the third was so soaked in blood that the British soldiers were not sure how he was killed.
While we were interviewing Sali, three more Serb men, aged 26, 28 and 29, were shot dead in the Pristina suburb of Kojlovica as they tried to flee in a refugee convoy. Serb sources said the gunmen wore red and black armbands and the victims were killed in front of their families.
Also on Monday night, British paratroopers came under fire from KLA guerrillas who had just murdered a Serb. Lieut Col Nicholas Clissett announced that the British were holding five KLA men following the incident.
It is not clear whether the KLA is summarily executing Serbs whom it suspects of committing atrocities, or whether the guerrillas are arbitrarily killing adult Serb men.
"Civilians not involved in war crimes can stay," said Sali. "But those who raped, killed and looted - their place is in The Hague court."
And what about those Serb forces so insignificant in the chain of command that they are unlikely to be indicted - would the KLA punish them?
"Definitely," says Sali. "If the international troops and the Hague court do not do their duty, those people who did violence against Albanians must pay the price."
The peace agreement accepted by the Yugoslav government alludes to "demilitarisation of the Kosovo Liberation Army". However, says Sali, "until now, we have received no orders to demilitarise."
His men will "respect and cooperate with NATO" but "nowhere in the [Rambouillet] agreement does it say we will be demobilised - it says the KLA is to be transformed into a civilian police and protection force".
The role of the KLA and the question of independence for the Serb province were left ambiguous at Rambouillet and in the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin accord which ended the war. Belgrade, bolstered by its Russian allies, believes it has preserved the territorial integrity of Serbia.
"If we accept that there was no point in taking up arms," says Sali. "We want nothing to do with the Russians."
He considers the KLA leader, "Prime Minister" Hashim Thaci, to be the legitimate government of Kosovo, not Belgrade. "I want independence and I have been working for it since I was 16 years old."
He hopes it can be achieved "through democratic means". If that happens, he will return to "normal life and my history studies". Until then, Sali is keeping his gun.