Catherine McDuffie April 4, 2008 2:54pm Global Crime
Ramush Haradinaj has just been acquitted of his war crime charges from The Hague in the Netherlands. He was charged for 37 counts of murder, rape, and torture. While Haradinaj was in The Hague, his political party slipped from power and is now run by a newly declared independent party. Haradinaj was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1998-1999 war. Serbian Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, said the U.N. court has lost its credibility with the acquittal of Haradinaj and claims that ethnic tensions in Serbia will now be heightened. Kostunica also says that The Hague should drop its insistence that Serbia arrest Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, fugitives who allegedly orchestrated the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in a Bosnian town. Many leaders of the area claim that the release of Haradinaj does not bring safe conditions to the area and that The Hague’s decision deserves to be explained.
The judges at Haradinaj’s trial confirmed that the KLA did in fact torture and murder their enemies, but said they had no reason to believe that Haradinaj had anything to do with the planning or follow through of those activities. I am bittersweet on this decision as I certainly feel someone has to be held accountable for the actions of the KLA, but I am completely against the court penalizing someone just to have a name to blame. I do not think it is fair by any means that the KLA was able to go through with these actions and their leaders are able to walk free. Of course Haradinaj knew about what was going on as he was a commander.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/04/europe/EU-GEN-Kosovo-War-Crimes.php
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