War Crimes: Albanians Jubilant, Serbs Alarmed

 

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.235428272&par=0


ADN Kronos International (Italy)
December 1, 2005


WAR CRIMES: ALBANIANS JUBILANT, SERBS ALARMED AT
KOSOVO VERDICT


-The ruling regarding the camp, operated by the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) appears to contradict previous sentences from the same
court which accepted the
principle of responsibility for alleged crimes up the
chain-of-command.
-"[F]reeing Limaj and Musliu "had cost Kosovo
Albanians and their lobbyists 50 million euro".
-"How is it possible that no one in Kosovo is
responsible for the things which are evident?" he [a
Serbian official] added, also referring to events
since the province was put under UN administration,
including an estimated 200,000 Serbs and other
non-Albanians who have fled from Kosovo, three
thousand who have been either killed or are listed as
missing, and the scores of Serbian churches and
medieval monasteries have been destroyed.
-Last month the ICTY acquitted a commander of the
Bosnian Muslim army, Sefer Halilovic, strengthening a
wide spread feeling in Serbia that the Tribunal is
actually politicised and anti-Serb.



Pristina/Belgrade - Kosovo Albanians celebrated with
gunshots and fireworks the acquittal of their
co-nationals, Fatmir Limaj and Isak Musliu, by the UN
war crimes tribunal in the Hague, while Serbs
expressed "shock and consternation".

Limaj, Musliu and a third man - Haradin Bala - were
the first Albanians indicted for crimes during the
1998 Kosovo Albanian rebellion against Serbian rule.
They were accused of operating a prison camp in
Lapushnik, where 23 Serb and Albanian civilians,
suspected of collaborating with Serb forces, were
killed from May to July 1998. The court acquitted
Limaj and Musliu, but convicted Bala, a prison guard,
to 13 years jail.

The International Tribunal for Crimes in former
Yugoslavia (ITCY) panel, headed by Australian judge
Kevin Parker, ruled that "it has not been proven
beyond reasonable doubt" that Limaj and Musliu were
responsible for the killings. The ruling regarding the
camp, operated by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
appears to contradict previous sentences from the same
court which accepted the principle of responsibility
for alleged crimes up the chain-of-command.

The ICTY ruling was greeted with celebrations,
fireworks and shooting in the air throughout Kosovo,
and president Ibrahim Rugova deemed it a victory for
justice. "Today's trial justifies the liberation
struggle of Kosovo Albanians against Serbian
occupation, the righteousness of the struggle for
freedom and independence of our country and confirms
the faith in international justice and the Hague
Tribunal," Rugova said.

He expressed the hope that "not all legal
possibilities have been exhausted" for freeing Bala as
well. Other Kosovo Albanian leaders echoed, more or
less, Rugova's words, praising Limaj, a former
political leader, and Musliu as national heroes.

But the reaction from Kosovo Serbs and the government
in Belgrade was predictably different.

Slavisa Petkovic, the only Serb who accepted a
ministerial post in Kosovo prime minister Bajram
Kosumi's government, said that ICTY decision was, "to
put it mildly, scandalous".

Petkovic, who is considered a traitor by many Serbs,
alleged that he had heard in Pristina that freeing
Limaj and Musliu "had cost Kosovo Albanians and their
lobbyists 50 million euro". It was unclear whether his
allegations that the court ruling was not impartial
were a reference to direct lobbying from the Kosovo
Albanians or from other outside sources.

Kosovo Albanians, who form a 1.7 million majority
against some 100.000 remaining Serbs, are demanding
independence in upcoming talks on the final status of
the technically Serbian province, under UN control
since 1999. Petkovic argued the ICTY verdict will only
encourage Kosovo Albanians to use violence to achieve
the goal of independence.

Jovan Simic, an aide to Serbian president Boris Tadic,
said that the verdict "presented a bad picture of the
Tribunal" , recalling that "not one Serb has been
freed" so far.

"How is it possible that no one in Kosovo is
responsible for the things which are evident" he
added, also referring to events since the province was
put under UN administration, including an estimated 200,000 Serbs and other
non-Albanians who have fled
from Kosovo three thousand who have been either killed
or are listed as missing, and the scores of Serbian
churches and medieval monasteries have been destroyed.


Even Belgrade lawyer, Vasilije Tapuskovic, who had
served as a "friend of the court" of the Hague
Tribunal, said expressed consternation over the
acquittal of Limaj and Musliu.

Last month the ICTY acquitted a commander of the
Bosnian Muslim army, Sefer Halilovic, strengthening a
wide spread feeling in Serbia that the Tribunal is
actually politicised and anti-Serb.

Close to fifty Serbs and several Croats have been
sentenced so far for crimes committed in the Balkan
wars of the 1990s.