U.N. Court Frees Former Leader of Kosovo

Valdrin Xhemaj/European Pressphoto Agency

Kosovar Albanians in Pristina celebrated after the decision on Thursday.

By MARLISE SIMONS

Published: November 29, 2012 

  PARIS — A United Nations war crimes tribunal on Thursday acquitted the former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, for the second time of torturing and killing Serb civilians while he was a commander of the NATO-backed Kosovo Liberation Army during its fight for independence in 1999.

The former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, in The Hague courtroom on Thursday.

Two of his comrades, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj, were also acquitted, although Mr. Brahimaj has already served a six-year sentence for torture handed down in an earlier trial. The judges ordered the three men released immediately.

Supporters cheered and applauded in the courtroom’s public gallery in The Hague, where proceedings were broadcast via videostream.

The men were expected to return later in the day to Kosovo, where Mr. Haradinaj’s supporters — even before the verdict — said they hoped he would return to politics. In Serbia, which is involved in crucial talks with Kosovo, a former Serbian province before the war, the decision was expected to provoke a new wave of angry reactions.

Earlier this month, the tribunal enraged the Belgrade government and many Serbs, when an appeals chamber threw out the convictions of two Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. They had led a 1995 military campaign that recaptured Serb-occupied Croatian land and drove more than 150,000 Serbs from Croatia.

The overturning of the Croatian and now the Kosovo convictions are seen as serious setbacks for the prosecution. It has said in recent days that it will seek a review of the Croatian appeals ruling, in which two of the five judges wrote unusually sharp dissents.

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