Kosovo ex-PM Haradinaj to receive Hague verdict

A UN war crimes tribunal is due to deliver a verdict in the partial retrial of former Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.

Mr Haradinaj was acquitted in 2008 but the verdict was overturned on grounds of witness intimidation.

Prosecutors have called for a 20-year sentence over allegations that he directed atrocities against Serb, Albanian and Roma civilians in 1998.

The ex-Kosovo Liberation Army fighter is being tried with two co-accused.

Mr Haradinaj and Idriz Balaj were acquitted on 37 counts of war crimes in the earlier trial, and are being retried on some of those counts.

A second co-defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was convicted in 2008 of torture and sentenced to six years, is now being retried on four counts.

The indictment against all three defendants alleged they had been involved in a joint criminal enterprise to establish KLA control in western Kosovo through detention camps.

Ethnic Serbs and Albanians who were deemed to have collaborated with Serbs were allegedly tortured and killed there, with 39 bodies found.

'KLA revenge'

Mr Haradinaj is the most senior ethnic Albanian indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

His supporters of Mr Haradinaj say the retrial was unfounded - and based on flimsy evidence.

While another acquittal is likely to spark anger in Belgrade, the BBC's Guy Delauney reports from the Serbian capital that a conviction would go some way to easing negative perceptions of the tribunal there.

Earlier this month there were protests in Belgrade after the UN tribunal acquitted two Croatian generals previously convicted of crimes against their country's Serb minority.

"Here in Serbia it's very important to accept that the Serbian police and military committed serious crimes against the Albanians," Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Centre told the BBC.

"But the Albanian community should also accept that the Kosovo Liberation Army organised revenge, killing Serbs who decided to stay in Kosovo."

Source: BBC (29/11/2012): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20536318