Serbia's leaders lashed out the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday over the court's recent acquittal of former Kosovo Prime Minister and former commander of Kosovo Liberation Army Ramush Haradinaj.
"The decision of the Hague tribunal to free and declare innocent a war criminal Ramush Haradinaj opens the question of legitimacy of this tribunal," Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told Serge Brammertz, the visiting new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Kostunica said Serbia has given plenty of evidence against 39 year-old Haradinaj, who was cleared of war crimes and crimes against humanity two weeks ago.
Brammertz, who arrived Thursday on his first visit to Belgrade since taking office in January, urged Serbia to step up its effort for the arrest of the remaining fugitives, including the wartime Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic.
But his visit was overshadowed by Haradinaj's acquittal for lack of evidence.
Brammertz said that his office is not satisfied with the ruling and is considering appealing the acquittal of the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The tribunal acquitted Haradinaj on the grounds that the prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence against him, but acknowledged that the trial chamber had difficulty getting witnesses to testify because many were too frightened to appear before the court.
Speaking about the acquittal of Haradinaj, Serbian President Boris Tadic said that the verdict was unjust, that the public in Serbia had every right to be dissatisfied, and voiced expectation that the ICTY prosecution would lodge an appeal against such a sentence.
"Serbia's position that all those that have committed war crimes on the territory of the former Yugoslavia have to be tried in The Hague, regardless of their ethnic background, is quite clear," Tadic said during his talks with Brammertz.
Tadic said that Serbia had done all that was in its power to end the cooperation with the tribunal and was doing everything possible to bring the fugitives to justice.
At the insistence of the Netherlands and Belgium, Serbia's full cooperation with the Hague tribunal remains a key condition for the country to sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the European Union, the first step to join the bloc.
During the talks, Kostunica also raised the issue of alleged trade in organs of kidnapped Serbs in Kosovo, which was unveiled in an autobiographical book "The Hunt" by Carla del Ponte, Brammertz's predecessor.
Brammertz said that the ICTY had not found evidence for launching an investigation into organ trade, and that he believed that it was for the authorized bodies in Kosovo and Albania to look into those cases.
Source:Xinhua
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