WESTERN diplomats in Kosovo say they expect the troubled province’s new prime minister to be indicted on suspicion of committing war crimes.

Ramush Haradinaj, a former nightclub bouncer who led the Kosovo Liberation Army’s (KLA) resistance to the Serb police and Yugoslav army in 1998 and 1999, is a heroic figure among Albanians.

His charisma helped to secure widespread support in the international community after the war and his political career was encouraged by British officials. But the murkier side of his rebel past now appears to be catching up with him.

The diplomats say Haradinaj, 36, is likely to be charged in connection with the killing of 40 Serb and Albanian civilians near his home village of Glodjane in the summer of 1998. The massacre is among several alleged KLA war crimes being investigated by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.

The officials said the tribunal was expected to issue an arrest warrant for Haradinaj within weeks to the United Nations authority running Kosovo.

Haradinaj, who lost his two brothers fighting the Serbs, has denied all allegations of war crimes and has co-operated with the Hague tribunal. However, UN and other international officials fear that even if he hands himself in, his removal could provoke violence in Kosovo, similar to riots last March in which hundreds of Serb homes, churches and monasteries were burnt.

Haradinaj has described the investigation against him as a conspiracy cooked up by Belgrade.

When the Kosovo parliament confirmed him as prime minister a week ago the Serbian government held an emergency session, and Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister, asked the UN to make Haradinaj stand down.

Officials close to a separate Serbian police inquiry into Haradinaj also made public new photographs of the Glodjane killings, in which bodies can be seen rotting beside a dam.

Pathology reports from the time suggested the victims, mostly local villagers, had been shot or beaten to death, and many bore signs of torture.

Serbian villagers who survived the KLA’s reign of terror in the neighbourhood have described being kidnapped and taken to a Haradinaj family house, where they were beaten with clubs and rifle butts.

Haradinaj enjoyed good relations with international monitors sent to Kosovo during the war, and was given a satellite telephone to help Nato target Yugoslav and Serb forces throughout of the 78-day bombing campaign that preceded the alliance’s entry into Kosovo.

“He always said the right things about wanting Albanians and Serbs to be able to live together in the future,” said a retired British army officer who met Haradinaj several times.

Britain backed Haradinaj as a rival to Hashim Thaci, political head of the KLA. As leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, he met Robin Cook, then the foreign secretary, in 2001. He later joined forces with the more moderate Ibrahim Rugova, president of Kosovo, to form the dominant coalition in parliament.

The diplomats say Haradinaj believes he can become the first prime minister of an independent Kosovo. The province’s status — it is still technically part of Serbia — is due to be decided next year.

A French diplomat said the authorities in Kosovo were expecting Haradinaj to give himself up towards the middle of January.

KFor, the Kosovo peacekeeping force, will be braced for action, and last week Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s secretary-general, urged Albanians to remain calm. “There is an absolute need for Haradinaj and his followers to behave responsibly if he is indicted,” he said.