Trial of Kosovo leader to begin today
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THE HAGUE — Ramush Haradinaj, who once was a nightclub bouncer and martial arts expert and rose to become a guerrilla chieftain and Kosovo’s prime minister, faces trial today on charges that he mounted an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Serbs.
Haradinaj flew to the Netherlands last week and was put in a cell in the Hague court’s detention unit, where codefendants Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj have been held since 2005. Hundreds of supporters saw him off, and Prime Minister Agim Ceku backed him in a radio address.
The trial deprives Kosovo Albanians of a charismatic leader at a time of rising violence as they edge toward the independence they fought for from 1998 to 1999, gained with Western intervention.
Haradinaj served as prime minister of U.N.-administered Kosovo for 100 days in 2005. He resigned when he was indicted. Before that he was a senior commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army, at which time he allegedly was involved in a plot to expel Serbs and their suspected collaborators from a western Kosovo region through killings, maltreatment and rape.
A separate case continues for six senior Serbs charged with atrocities in Kosovo.
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