ICTY prosecutor: Haradinaj approved rape, persecution, murder of Kosovo Serbs
Kosovo's former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj approved the rape, persecution and murder of Serb civilians when he led the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the late 1990s, prosecutor David Re said at his war crimes trial in The Hague.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, January 22, 2008
"There was a saying: 'God in heaven, Haradinaj on earth'," Re said.
"His degree of control was such... that the murders, tortures and rapes could not have occurred without his approval," he added.
Prosecutors are seeking a 25-year-sentence for Haradinaj and his two co-accused Idriz Balaj, the commander of the "Black Eagles", a special unit of the KLA, and Lahi Brahimaj, Haradinaj's uncle.
The Haradinaj case in the Hague Tribunal is shedding a different light about the 1998-99 events in Kosovo, before the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia, and shatters the "good vs bad guy" stereotype about the conflict.
