BALKANS: Serbia Outraged over Kosovan Acquittal

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Apr 4 2008 (IPS) - Serbians feel outraged after the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj of atrocities against non-Albanians in 1998. Haradinaj’s guerrilla group fought central rule from Belgrade at the time.

The United Nations founded ICTY based in The Hague “has lost its credibility,” President Boris Tadic said in a statement. Outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the acquittal “demonstrates that the ICTY was a political instrument” to ensure that “those who committed crimes against Serbs could be officially innocent.” The ICTY acquitted Haradinaj and his associate Idriz Balaj Thursday of all accusations of crimes against humanity, including the murder of 40 Serbs and Roma, and torture and rape in Dukadjin in north-western Kosovo in 1998. At the time Haradinaj was commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that led an armed insurgency against Belgrade.

The conflict in Kosovo, which ended in 1999 after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing of Serbia and withdrawal of Belgrade’s security forces, took thousands of human lives both among ethnic Albanians and Serbs. More than 5,000 ethnic Albanians and 1,300 Serbs are still missing.

According to Judge Alphons Orie, who pronounced the ruling, the accusations could not be supported by “sufficient evidence”.

He admitted the trial faced “significant difficulties” since its beginning in March 2007, above all the reluctance of more than 80 witnesses to testify on behalf of the prosecution, despite protective measures taken for dozens of them. Four avoided testimony completely, two died in suspicious circumstances before they could appear in court.

“Many cited fear for not wishing to appear before the court…this chamber realised that there was an unfavourable situation for witnesses in Kosovo,” Judge Orie said.

Ramush Haradinaj became prime minister of Kosovo in 2004, but surrendered to the ICTY in 2005 when the indictment against him was announced. He remains one of the most controversial figures in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February.

To Kosovo Serbs the acquittal came as yet another blow. “This is certainly disappointing for Serbs,” Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic told Belgrade B92 TV. “Haradinaj wrote two books on his role as commander of the Dukadjin region, enough evidence could be found there…Indirect evidence of serious issues surrounding him is the murders of important witnesses as well.”

Simo Spasic, head of the Alliance of Families of Serbs Disappeared in Kosovo, said the ruling has brought disappointment. “This is another stab into our hearts,” Spasic told IPS. “Haradinaj will be welcomed in Pristina as a hero, while parts of Kosovo have been cleansed of Serbs and other non-Albanians because of him.”

“The court was supposed to play an important and historic role in making the political elites and people face the issue of war crimes (in the wars of former Yugoslavia),” Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said at a press conference. “However, if, in the Haradinaj case, the defendant is provisionally released and one witness is killed in a car accident and one is stabbed to death during that period, and dozens fear for their lives, one cannot make a very firm case. I expect the prosecution to file a complaint.”

Haradinaj was provisionally released in June 2005 and returned to the ICTY in March 2007 when the trial against him and his aides began.

“The Prosecution could not prepare the case properly for several reasons,” human rights activist Natasa Kandic told IPS. “On the one hand, witnesses were under extreme pressure, the UN administration in Kosovo did little to provide security for them; two deaths of witnesses were not investigated, and Serbia, on its side, did not provide enough evidence either.”

Serbian official in charge of cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic said the ruling will “further lower the already poor image of the ICTY in Serbia.” Serbia is under pressure to find and hand over the most wanted Bosnia war crimes indictees, General Ratko Mladic and political leader Radovan Karadzic. They are accused of genocide in which about 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica in 1995.

The government in Kosovo welcomed the ICTY verdict. “The government of Kosovo salutes the verdict, and the release of Haradinaj and Balaj,” Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said in a statement.