Acquittal of Haradinaj is a Slap in the Face

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On 29 November, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, accused of war crimes, for the second time. The Serbian government made a special statement saying that the not guilty verdict was scandalous. It called the verdict an indulgence for committed crimes and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The Hague–based Tribunal acquitted Haradinaj in 2008 because the judges decided that there was insufficient evidence. However, his case went back to the ICTY for a new hearing at Serbia’s urgent request. Serbia said that some witnesses in the Haradinaj case were intimidated, and that many of them were simply eliminated. According to Belgrade, 30 witnesses and members of their families were killed from 1999 to 2011. Since the ICTY handed down its not guilty verdict to Haradinaj, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) made a special statement. It said that, for the first time in the history of international justice, the witnesses in this case were subjected to blatant blackmail, and very often simply eliminated. All this occurred in an atmosphere of complete impunity and with the connivance of international missions in Kosovo.

Dragan Stanojević, President of the United Serbian Diaspora in Eurasia, said, “For Serbs, the Hague Tribunal engenders cynicism because of its lack of justice. We should ask for the closure of the Hague Tribunal and ask for the reconsideration of its decisions, as well as holding trials of those who delivered such verdicts. All cooperation with the Hague Tribunal should be halted”. Again, the judges mentioned a lack of convincing evidence for convicting Haradinaj, who was one of the cruellest chieftains of the Albanian militants during the Kosovo War at the end of the 90s. He was involved in killing, torturing, raping, expelling, and persecuting the Serb population. Serbia opened 108 criminal cases involving murders and terrorism against him. In Kosovo, Haradinaj is one of the mafia godfathers. He controls arms, drugs, and gold smuggling.

Even former ICTY Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said that she was shocked to hear the ruling of the Tribunal’s Chamber of Appeal. Aleksandr Karasev, an expert with the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said, “It’s not objective. According to it, all Serbs receive punishment, whilst it acquits all the rest. The Hague Tribunal had the task of creating a legal justification of the actions that were carried out by NATO and the USA in the Balkans, and the ICTY Tribunal fulfilled this task”. Two-thirds of the cases involved Serbs, and two-thirds of those convicted are Serbs too. Current forecasts are that, after his acquittal, Haradinaj will have a first-class political career. According to media reports, behind-the scenes talks about a possible coalition of Haradinaj’s party, the Alliance For the Future of Kosovo, with the Democratic Party of Kosovo led by the current Kosovo Prime Minister (and Haradinaj’s good friend) Hashim Thaçi are presently underway.

30 November 2012

Andrei Fedyashin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_11_30/Acquittal-of-Haradinaj-Slap-in-the-Face/

 

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Karadžić Begins Defence in War Crimes Trial

In case you’ve forgotten, THIS is what Wet Willy’s neocon advisers want in the Balkans… and what Radovan Karadžić fought against…

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On Tuesday, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić began his defence against allegations of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, saying, “I should’ve been rewarded for all the good things that I’ve done, because I did everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce the human suffering”. He’s been given 300 hours for his defence, an equal amount of time as given to the prosecution.

He stands accused of ten counts of crimes including one charge of genocide, murder, inhumane acts, unlawful attack on civilians, and hostage-taking during the conflicts that erupted in the Balkans in the 1990s. In September, the ICTY rejected his request for a retrial. The trial started on 26 October 2009 and has had repeated delays. Karadžić maintains that he isn’t guilty. In June, one genocide charge against him was dropped due to insufficient evidence. However, the court refused to dismiss a second genocide charge, which relates to the murders of up to 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. Initially indicted in 1995, he spent 13 years in hiding in hiding before being arrested in Belgrade in 2008.

16 October 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/world/20121016/176667101.html

Editor’s Note:

Even though both interventionist Democrats and neoconRepublicans have an unreasoning and demonic hatred of Serbs, the latter are worse. Indeed, they’re so much so that a vote for Romney is a vote for kicking our Serb co-religionists full-force in the face until the blood and gore fly. NO Real Orthodox believer should cooperate in such wickedness… no Real Orthodox believer should be able to do such evil. What does that tell us about the konvertsy and the Far Right ethnics who suck up to them? They ADORE the Far Right lunatics who want to bomb the whole world… not only poor little Serbia. None dare call it diabolical…

BMD

Russia May Voice No Confidence in the Hague Tribunal

The Peace Palace, the headquarters of the International Court of Justice in The Hague (South Holland Province) THE NETHERLANDS

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The Russian Foreign Ministry says Moscow was shocked to hear about the enormities that members of the Kosovo Liberation Army committed against Serb civilians in Kosovo. This was a response of the Foreign Ministry to the publication of memoirs written by Carla del Ponte, the former prosecutor-general of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The book lashed out at many leading members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, including Kosovar prime minister Hashim Thaçi and Ramush Haradinaj, who was recently acquitted of all guilt by the Hague Tribunal. It says those men played a role in the abduction and torture of ethnic Serbs. Yet, what was worse, body parts from murdered Serbs were offered for sale as part of the black-market trade in human organs for transplant. Russia asked, in a formal letter to the International Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, whether the Tribunal’s aware of the crimes committed against ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and what it’s done to investigate them.

The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established to make an unbiased inquiry into what happened in former Yugoslavia . The fragmentation of the once-flourishing Yugoslav state was accompanied by a bloody civil war. Western advocates of the idea of an international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia thought in terms of the Nuremberg tribunal, which held hearings into the cases of Nazi criminals in 1945, which earned worldwide appreciation for its efforts. However, there’s a big difference between the two international tribunals. Crimes are committed by all participants in a civil war. Ethnic Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians… all of them committed crimes and were, in turn, victimised in the confusion and turmoil in the Balkans. The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was to have set an example of an unbiased approach to cases under its consideration and irreproachable decision-making.

Nevertheless, it always seemed biased because it always aimed to punish the late Yugoslav state and its legal successor Serbia. That explains the rash proclamation of Kosovar sovereignty and the opening of a US Embassy in Kosovo. Boris Shmelyov of the Moscow Centre for Comparative Political Studies saw the latest developments in Kosovo as “a part of an effort for the formation of a ‘new world order’. The beautiful words about democracy hide the interests of the leading countries of the West, first and foremost, the United States of America”. What Ms del Ponte says in her book and the recent scandalous acquittal of Kosovar field commander Ramush Haradinaj are links in the chain of events. They prove that the International Tribunal dishonoured its purpose. Furthermore, because it’s repeatedly doubted whether the Hague Tribunal takes an unbiased view of cases under its consideration, Russia may finally voice no confidence in that court of justice.

9 April 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=25455&cid=56&p=09.04.2008