Haradinaj Granted Provisional Release

Kosovo's ex-premier granted conditional release
June 7, 2005 Tuesday 10:40 AM GMT - Agence France Presse -- English

THE HAGUE June 7 - Kosovo's former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj will be released conditionally pending his trial on rape and other atrocities during the 1998-99 conflict in the mainly ethnic Albanian Serbian province, a spokeswoman for the UN war crimes tribunal said Tuesday.

Florence Hartmann said prosecutor Carla Del Ponte had decided not to appeal a decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday to grant Haradinaj conditional release.

One of the measures imposed by the court is that Haradinaj not engage in politics.

Haradinaj, 35, turned himself in to the ICTY in March after resigning as Kosovo prime minister following his indictment by the tribunal.

The ethnic Albanian is among the most important political figures facing charges before the tribunal along with former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic.

In addition to rape, Haradinaj is accused of murder, persecution and cruel treatment of Serbian, Albanian and Roma civilians in Kosovo as a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, at the time.

Prosecutors allege that he supervised a systematic campaign aimed at taking control of several towns in western Kosovo including Pec, Decani and Djakovica in order to chase out Serbian villagers between March and September 1998.