JOIN USThe UN Yugoslav war crimes court today acquitted Kosovo’s ex-prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and two aides in a retrial on charges of murder and torture during the 1990s war of independence from Belgrade.
“The chamber finds you not guilty on all counts in the indictment,” Judge Bakone Justice Moloto told the Hague-based court, ordering the men released in a decision that is certain to enrage Belgrade.
Haradinaj, 44 and Idriz Balaj, 41, were being retried on six war-crime charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for allegedly murdering and torturing Serbs and non-Albanians during the 1998-99 war.
The third accused, Lahi Brahimaj, 42, faced four counts for his role in the fight between independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerillas and the Belgrade forces of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.