A Chilling Charge Sheet

Former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj arrived in The Hague this week to face charges that he took part in a brutal campaign to abduct, torture and murder dozens of people including Albanians and Roma as well as Serbs in 1998.

Haradinaj, who resigned from his post on March 8 and handed himself over to the United Nations tribunal the following day, faces a total of 37 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.

The indictment against him, released to the public on March 10, throws into sharp relief the image he has successfully nurtured in Kosovo in recent years as a respectable statesman and champion of independence for the protectorate’s ethnic Albanian majority.

Prosecutors allege that as one of the most senior commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, in the late Nineties, he was responsible for brutal tactics intended to drive Serbs from their homes and ensure KLA dominance in Western Kosovo.

He is said by prosecutors to have been present when prisoners were beaten and mutilated, and when orders were given to execute them.

And he is also accused of personal involvement in the abduction of two Albanian men who were later found dead.

Haradinaj is charged along with two of his alleged subordinates at the time: Lahi Brahimaj, said to have been a contact person between the local headquarters and the KLA’s general staff; and Idriz Balaj, who prosecutors say was head of a special unit in the area known as the “Black Eagles”.

Brahimaj and Balaj each face 35 counts. Like Haradinaj, although they may not have personally participated in all the incidents in question, they are charged on the basis that the atrocities arose from a “joint criminal enterprise” in which they played an active part.

Prosecutors say the crimes occurred after late March 1998, when troops under Haradinaj's command mounted a campaign to seize control of parts of the so-called "Dukagjin operational zone", near the western border with Albania.

When Serbian government forces retook the area in September, a Serbian forensics team recovered dozens of bodies, many of whom were later identified as those of Serb, Roma and Albanian civilians who had disappeared in the previous five months.

The indictment goes on to enumerate a series of incidents in which civilians were abducted by KLA forces during that period. In most cases, they were never seen again.

In mid-May, prosecutors say, Ivan Zaric, a Serb, and Albanians Agron Berisha and Burim Bejta were arrested by KLA troops and detained at a makeshift detention centre in Jablanica/Jabllanice.

There, Haradinaj apparently watched as Balaj cut off Zaric’s ear, prosecutors charge. Afterwards, Brahimaj – still with Haradinaj present – is said to have announced, “Now we’ll issue the papers for Drenica” - slang for extrajudicial execution. Prosecutors say the three were taken away and have not been seen alive since.

In late July, Haradinaj and another KLA soldier are alleged to have kidnapped two more Albanians, Hajrullah Gashi and Isuf Hoxha from a bus on the road to Malisevo. Their bodies were later discovered by the Serbian police, with signs that they had been severely beaten.

Also in July, prosecutors say another Albanian, Naser Lika, was arrested by KLA troops because of his alleged support for the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, a rival movement which focused on passive resistance to the Belgrade government.

Lika, they say, was brought to Jablanica/Jabllanice where Haradinaj told the soldiers, “You brought him here, so go ahead with your job.”

After Lika had been threatened at gunpoint and beaten until he collapsed on the floor, Haradinaj allegedly grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head up and spat in his face. The prisoner was then held for over three weeks before managing to escape.

Brahimaj, a close relative of Haradinaj, is alleged to have been in charge of the detention facility at Jablanica/Jabllanice. Besides the crimes mentioned above, both he and Balaj are also accused of personal involvement in a series of others.

In one particularly vicious attack, Balaj is said to have been present when a detainee’s nose was hacked off. Prosecutors say Balaj then cut him and another two prisoners on their necks, arms and thighs, rubbed salt into the wounds and sewed them up with a needle. Balaj apparently then wrapped the detainees up in barbed wire, drove the barbs through their skin and stabbed one of them in the eye.

The three were then allegedly tied behind Balaj's vehicle and dragged off in the direction of Lake Radonjic/Radoniq, the site of the largest mass grave later discovered by the Serb police. They have not been seen since and are presumed dead.

Balaj is also said to have raped a woman after interrogating her about her alleged collaboration with the Serbian police and military. She is due to testify in proceedings against the three.

Balaj has been serving a 15 year jail sentence in Kosovo since 2002, when he was convicted along with four other former KLA members of the 1999 murders of four soldiers from the rival Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo, FARK.

Following the end of that trial, two prosecution witnesses were gunned down in separate incidents in and around the town of Peja/Pec. A third survived an attempt on his life later in 2003.

It remains unclear whether the attacks were linked to organised crime, or whether they were retribution for the witnesses’ testimony in the case.

Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.