The trial against Ramush Haradinai

Hague Tribunal Acquits Kosovo War Criminal

The Hague Tribunal acquitted Ramush Kharadinai, the former field commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army and ex-head of the province's government, due to "absence of sufficient evidence" to substantiate his involvement in crimes against Serbs, Gypsies, and dissident Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija


By VYACHESLAV SOLOVYOV
Voice of Russia World Service


The trial against Ramush Haradinai smacked of scandal from the very start. Despite the gravity of accusations against him, he was released from custody and allowed to return to Kosovo until the hearings began. Right afterwards, many witnesses to the prosecution withdrew their testimony and some were found dead. The Dutch judge Alfonse Ori said as he pronounced the verdict that the court had the impression that the trial had taken place in an atmosphere when witnesses felt their lives were in danger.

The verdict, however, was not surprising. It is nothing but an episode in the western scenario aimed at restructuring the Balkan Region to conform to the interests of the United States and NATO. The scenario in question went into effect in the early 1990s and was anti-Serbian to the bone. The strikingly mild verdict pronounced by the Hague Tribunal on the UCK Carla del Ponte former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was denied medical assistance even when he fell seriously ill, and he died in custody as a result.

The reason for such a differentiated approach to the two parties in the conflict is analysed by Yelena Guskova, the head of Balkan Crisis Centre. "Serbia is being punished for disobedience. Had it agreed to let NATO use its territory so that Yugoslavia could be destroyed the way the alliance planned in the 1990s, then, it might have avoided the conflict. It's clear then that the West's approach to a post-Yugoslav settlement is dominated by political rather than legal considerations and the Hague Tribunal is following suit".

The verdict on Mr Kharadinai also aroused interest in connection with a book by Carla del Ponte, the former Chief Prosecutor to the Hague Tribunal, in which she accuses the leaders of Albanian militants in Kosovo of setting up a secret network trading in human organs they had obtained from murdered Serbs. Ms del Ponte argues she was prevented from investigating the case, which is fairly understandable, because facts so shocking could disrupt the recognition of Kosovo. The Thursday verdict by the Hague Tribunal, which clears Ramush Kharadinai of any charges against him, fits nicely into the West's monomaniacal anti-Serbian stance in any Balkan settlement.


(Published: 10.04.2008.)

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