More than two years after acquitting the former prime minister of Kosovo of murder, rape and torture, appeals judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday ordered him to be retried because the intimidation of witnesses had invalidated his trial and produced “a miscarriage of justice.”
The ruling against Ramush Haradinaj threatened to aggravate already mounting tensions between Kosovo and Serbia on the eve of a separate advisory ruling yesterday by the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s legal status.
It also drew an immediate reaction from Kosovo, where Haradinaj is seen as a hero as a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought with NATO support for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Blerim Shala, Haradinaj’s deputy in the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, said the decision to retry Haradinaj in The Hague was “very bad news” for Kosovo and its citizens.
In Serbia, where the acquittal of Haradinaj has often been cited with disdain, the judgment was welcomed by Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic. Serbs have complained that only one other trial at the tribunal has dealt with violence against Serbs by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war.
In April 2008, Haradinaj was acquitted for lack of evidence on a series of charges relating to crimes said to have been carried out by men under his command in 1998. But the appeals tribunal, in a decision that was two years in the making, said the original trial had failed “to take adequate measures to secure the testimony of certain witnesses,” a statement on the tribunal’s Web site said.
The appeals judges said that in light of “the serious witness intimidation that formed the context of the trial,” the tribunal erred in acquitting Haradinaj in 2008.
The ruling added that this “error undermined the fairness of the proceedings and resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”
Haradinaj was arrested in Kosovo on Tuesday and taken to The Hague. Two other former rebel commanders, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj, who had stood trial with him, will also be retried.
Accounts of witness intimidation were heard at other trials at the tribunal, where Serbs, Croats, Kosovars and Bosnians have been prosecuted for crimes linked to the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But in no case was the threat to witnesses so deeply worrying to prosecutors than in the case of the three men from Kosovo.
The prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, warned the judges at the start of the trial that the intimidation of witnesses was so rampant that she might be obliged to withdraw the indictment.
“You know that many witnesses are reluctant to testify; some are even terrified,” she said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The