Aryanews- A UN court quashed the war crimes acquittal Wednesday of ex-Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj because of witness intimidation, and ordered his retrial for murder and torture with two others.
"The appeals chamber ... orders that Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj be retried" on several counts of the initial indictment, appeals judge Patrick Robinson of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said.
This would be the court's first-ever retrial.
Robinson ordered the three, all former senior figures in the separatist ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), to be detained in The Hague.
Haradinaj, 42, and Balaj, 38, were freed after their acquittal in April 2008 on numerous counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed against Serbs and political opponents -- including murder, torture and rape.
Haradinaj, the most senior Kosovo leader to stand trial at the tribunal, was arrested on Tuesday and transferred to the Netherlands from Pristina on an ICTY warrant, spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said according to AFP.
Balaj, serving an unrelated sentence in a Kosovo jail, was not present for the judgment and has yet to be transferred, she said.
Co-accused Brahimaj, 40, who was convicted of torture and sentenced to six years in jail in 2008 but released pending the appeal outcome, sat next to Haradinaj in the accused box.
Neither man displayed any reaction as Robinson read out the judgment, saying the trial chamber should have given prosecutors more time to secure the testimony of witnesses who were intimidated into silence.
"The trial chamber failed to take sufficient steps to counter witness intimidation that permeated the trial," said the judge, ordering that Haradinaj and Balaj be retried on six war crimes charges, which include counts of murder, cruel treatment and torture, and Brahimaj on four.
"Given the potential importance of these witnesses to the prosecution's case, the error undermined the fairness of the proceedings and resulted in a miscarriage of justice."
Haradinaj was a KLA commander at the time of the alleged atrocities in 1998, while Balaj allegedly headed a paramilitary unit known as the Black Eagles.
Brahimaj was a deputy commander of the KLA and ran the notorious Jablanica prison camp.
The prosecution had sought 25-year prison terms for all three on charges that included beating, torturing and murdering detainees suspected of collaborating with Serbs.
Michael O'Reilly, the head of Haradinaj's defence team, said in a statement issued in Pristina he was "extremely surprised" by the judges' majority decision.
"We could not have predicted such a development, particularly if one takes into account the unanimity with which the decision to acquit was taken two years ago," he said.
Haradinaj's Alliance for the future of Kosovo (AAK) described the judgment as "very bad news for the party, for the citizens of Kosovo and for the state of Kosovo," it said in a statement.
The president of Serbia's National Council for cooperation with the ICTY, Rasim Ljajic, welcomed the ruling and said it could boost future cooperation with the tribunal, generally regarded as hostile by Serbs.
The three men had initially surrendered to the court in March 2005, and went on trial two years later.