PROFILE: Former rebel and Kosovo premier cleared of war crime charges

Apr 3, 2008

Pristina - The United Nations war crimes tribunal on Thursday found Kosovo's former guerrilla commander and prime minister Ramush Haradinaj not guilty of murder, torture and rape.

Haradinaj, 39, was tried for his role as one of the top commanders in the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), which launched a guerrilla war against Belgrade's rule over the majority Albanians in the province.

The conflict spiralled out of control in 1998-99 and eventually drew NATO to strike Serbia with its air power and oust Belgrade's security forces from Kosovo by the middle of 1999.

Serbian sources say that Haradinaj rose through the UCK ranks after receiving military terrorist training in the neighbouring Albania, as the main organizer of weapon-smuggling to Kosovo and the founder of a deadly commando unit.

After Belgrade's rule was replaced with a UN administration, Haradinaj, like several other prominent guerrilla commanders, exchanged a combat uniform for a politician's suit.

Haradinaj had briefly became deputy commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the demilitarized UCK and entered politics in 2001, with his Alliance for the Future of Kosovo party.

Following parliamentary elections in late 2004, Haradinaj was elected to head a coalition government despite signals that ICTY would indict him.

He has spent just some three months in the office before he resigned in March 2005 and turned himself in to ICTY face the then still sealed indictment.

Along with two other UCK fighters, the tribunal's prosecution accused Haradinaj of murder, torture, rape and maltreatment of Serbs in pursuit of ethnic cleansing.

That indictment however appears pale in comparison with that compiled by Belgrade prosecutors, alleging more than 100 counts of terrorism, rape, murders and other assorted crimes.

He dismissed all accusations, insisting that he followed the rules of combat law and described the ICTY indictment as the international community's bid aimed at appeasing Serbia.

Haradinaj's authority in the Djukagjini Valley in western Kosovo remains undisputed even today - the people in the region even today refer to him simply as 'he' or 'the commander.'

His family however paid a high price for that - two of his brothers were killed in the war and another was assassinated three years ago in an apparent crime-related blood feud with another clan.

Of the remaining two junior brothers, one, Daut, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2000 by an international judge for the kidnapping, torture and murder of rival clan members.

Even Ramush was wounded in a massive, post-war gunfight in Kosovo, but was never investigated.

Since this trial at ICTY began, prosecutors have been complaining over witnesses who were apparently intimidated into refusing to testify.

Last week, the entire Kosovo leadership - president, prime minister and assembly speaker - wrote to ICTY professing Haradinaj's innocence, and welcomed his release on Thursday.