The Haradinaj Brothers and Their Involvement in Terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily - December 15 & 16, 2004 [2 articles]

 

 
Profile: Ramush (HilmI) Haradinaj, New Prime Minister of Kosovo & Metohija
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily - December 15, 2004, Wednesday

Analysis. From GIS Station Belgrade. Ramush (Hilmi) Haradinaj, 36, the former nightclub bouncer who was named by the Kosovo provincial parliament as Prime Minister of the Serbian province during the first week of December 2004, has a long and serious record of criminal and terrorist activities, including links with the al-Qaida terrorist movement. He is expected to be indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. The charges were expected to include the killing of 40 Serb and Albanian civilians near his home village of Glodjane in the Summer of 1998.

Haradinaj was born on July 3, 1968, in the village of Glodjani, Municipality of Decani. He is suspected of having committed criminal acts of terrorism, association with hostile intentions, and the murder of civilians; 108 criminal charges were brought against him. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1989, after which he joined the French Foreign Legion. In 1996, back in the Balkans, he completed his diversionary terrorist training. In Albania, he took part in establishing the logistics bases of al-Qaida in Kuks and Tropoj, and later used these bases, with a group of trusted associates, as key elements in the chain to transport weapons to Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province.

In mid-1997, Haradinaj illegally entered Serbia's Kosovo province, and, together with his brothers, Daut and Shkelzen, organized terrorist attacks against the police department in the village of Ranic, Municipality of Decani, and the village of Ponosevac, Municipality of Djakovica, and on the refugee camps in Junik and Babaloc.

At the beginning of 1998, in Glodjani, he formed a diversionary terrorist group which, following his orders, intercepted and threatened Serbs and Albanians loyal to the Republic of Serbia. This group, headed by the Haradinaj brothers, attacked a police patrol in the village of Glodjani, in which Miodrag Otovic was murdered.

In April 1998, the terrorist group, led by Ramush Haradinaj, established the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) general staff in Glodjani for Metohija, the members of which became his brothers Daut and Skeljzen, as well as Hilmi Haradinaj, Faton Mehmeti, Rasim Haradinaj, Fadil Nimonaj, Maliq Ndrecaj, and others, while Ramush himself was engaged in the promotion and establishment of local general staffs on the overall region of Decani and Djakovica. At the same time, on his initiative, a special KLA unit was formed in Glodjani, called "Black Eagles", whose commander was Idriz Balaj, aka "Toger". Under the leadership of Ramush Haradinaj, the "Black Eagles" kidnapped and murdered dozens of Serb civilians. A number of bodies were found in the Radonjic Lake and village wells in the Decani Municipality.

After Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) was formed out of the KLA, following the end of the NATO attacks on Serbia, Haradinaj was appointed Deputy Commander to the KPC Commander, Agim eku. Towards the end of 2000, he left the KPC and established the ABK party. In order to maintain his influence over KPC, he managed to place his brother Daut as the commander of the 3rd RTG of KPC which carries out the assassinations of Ramush's political rivals. Haradinaj also has close connection within the KPC structure, bearing in mind that a large number of policemen and officers of this formation were active in KLA at the time when Haradinaj was the commander of the KLA general staff in Metohija.

Ramush Haradinaj has been regarded by Serbian authorities as the most influential criminal in Metohija, in the region of Pec, Decani and Djakovica. In cooperation with Ekrem Lluka and Naser Kelmendi, he created a criminal organization which controls the organized smuggling of drugs, cigarettes, oil, oil derivates, weapons, vehicles and other goods. His close associates, Isa Balaj, Arton Tolaj, Avdyl Mushkoli and Ali Haskaj, all from Decani, are in contact with the members of the Albanian mafia.

A part of the acquired profit from the criminal activities of Haradinaj and his criminal group was given to KPC, and from the same source, a significant part of the financial means was forwarded to Nazim Haradinaj, who supplied the Albanian terrorists in Macedonia with weapons.

Haradinaj belongs to an influential family in the Pec region, which has great rivals in the Rugova and the Musaj clan, which traditionally aids Ibrahim Rugova's DSK political party in Kosovo & Metohija, and formerly had close connections with FARK of Bujar Bukosi. On July 7, 2000, he was seriously wounded in the village of Strelci, in the western part of K&M, as a result of an inter-mafia conflict between the groups belonging to Hashim Thaqi (Thaci) and Haradinaj and the Musaj family. Before and after that, a series of murders were committed as a consequence of the blood feud among the warring clans.

In the second half of 2002, an investigation was launched, and Daut Haradinaj and a group of top KPC officers were arrested and sentenced to a number of years in prison. Beside that, criminal charges were brought in the District Court in Pec, against Ramush Haradinaj.

Aiming to free his brother from prison, Haradinaj, with the mediation of Avdyl Mushkoli, organized demonstrations and initiated the formation of a group of some 30 people who attempted to release Daut Haradinaj by force from the Dubrava prison, Istok Municipality.

In January 2003, Haradinaj organized the assassination of Tahir Zemaj, a FARK commander, his son Enis and nephew Hysen, on the Pristina-Pec road, in the vicinity of a lumber plant, due to the fact that Zemaj was supposed to be the State witness in the proceedings against Daut Haradinaj and himself.

Following Ramush Haradinaj's orders, Maliq Ndrecaj was sent to the Vitina region, in order to organize the terrorist Albanian National Army (ANA), which proof of Haradinaj's involvement in the incidents in southern Serbia. He was especially active in arms procurement and the secret training of terrorists from this region, which was organized in the villages along the administrative border.

Copyright 2004 Defense & Foreign Affairs/International Strategic Studies Association
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Dossier: Involvement of Haradinaj Brothers in Terrorist and Criminal Activities in Kosovo
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily - December 16, 2004 Thursday

From GIS Station Belgrade. Intelligence sources, and sources within the Kosovo Islamist and Albanian national movements, have begun to provide detailed information on the two brothers of the newly-elected Prime Minister of the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija, Ramush (Hilmi) Haradinaj, 36. Mr Haradinaj, despite his election by the Albanian-controlled regional Parliament in the Serbian province, was expected to soon be indicted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, December 15, 2004: Profile: Ramush (HilmI) Haradinaj, New Prime Minister of Kosovo & Metohija .

Mr Haradinaj's two brothers, Bujar (Rasim) and Daut (Hilmi) (alias "Cufi" or "Cripple"), have been heavily involved with Ramush Haradinaj in criminal, terrorist and insurgent activities in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans. The basic files on the two brothers of the provincial premier are as follows:

BUJAR (Rasim) HARADINAJ

Born on May 15, 1976, in the village of Glodjani, Municipality of Decani, in the Kosovo territory.

As a member of the armed, ethnic-Albanian formation which was active on the territory of the operative zone of Dukadjin, he took part in more than 87 assassinations, 29 kidnappings and set up a number of jails in the villages of Glodjani, Belanica, Likovac, Jablanica and Smonica in the Municipality of Prizren. He was involved in the rape and sexual harassment of a number of individuals and in the destruction of considerable property.

As well, he was responsible for some 180 terrorist attacks, among which were armed attacks on the villages of Ljodja and Babaloc, in the middle of 1998, as well as for the forced expulsion of the population from the territory of Djakovica, Pec and Decani, and for setting the Orthodox church in the village of Gornji Rasic on fire.

Bujar Haradinaj was the immediate perpetrator of a number of armed attacks on the members of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia and the Serbia & Montenegro forces. Together with Agim Selmani and Daut Haradinaj, he took part in the attack on the members of the Army and police, in August 1998, in the vicinity of the village of Saptej, Municipality of Decani, and headed a group of terrorists in the attack against the members of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the village of Jablanica, in the Municipality of Djakovica, as well as in the attacks against the policemen and soldiers in the village of Glodjani, in October 1998 and in the Dasinovac bridge, Municipality of Decani in November 1999.

In addition, he has been connected with the smuggling of arms into Kosovo & Metohija.

DAUT (Hilmi) HARADINAJ, alias "Cufi" or "Cripple"

Born on April 6, 1978, in the village of Glodjani, in the Municipality of Decani, in the Kosovo territory. As a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) member, he was seriously wounded in the conflicts with the Serbian security forces and was left without an arm.

Following an initiative of the Ramus brothers, Daut and Shkelzen Haradinaj, at the beginning of 1998, he formed the KLA general staff in Glodjani, whose commander became Ramush (ie: the current Prime Minister of Kosovo), and his deputy Daut Haradinaj who was subsequently named a member of the KLA general staff and the commander of the 131st brigade "Isuf Grvala". Members of this brigade committed a large number of crimes in the Deeani region.

In the Glodjani prison, which was under direct control of Ramush and Daut Haradinaj, a large number of Serbs were murdered, amongst whom Slobodan Radojevic, Milos and Milica Radunovic, Milka Vlahovic, Darinka Kovae, Novica Vujisic, Zdravko Radunovic, Dragan Djukic, Miloje and Vinka Krstic, and others. Daut Haradinaj also directly participated in the murder of Slobodan Praseevic and the policeman Milorad Otasevic. He is also held responsible for the crimes against the Serbs and Albanians loyal to the Republic of Serbia, as well as those who could have been potential witnesses of the crimes committed by the Haradinaj brothers. He is the direct perpetrator of a number of assassinations, and he organized the assassination of Tahir Zemaj, as well as a score of other political rivals of Hashim Thaqi (Thaci).

After the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) was formed by NATO and European authorities out of the KLA, Daut Haradinaj was the deputy commander and, afterwards, the commander of the 3rd RTG. Upon achieving KPC command, he was in charge of coordinating operations with the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaida . In that capacity, he organized a meeting with leading al-Qaida military leader Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of the ideological leader of al-Qaida, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri.

Daut Haradinaj was suspended from KPC in 2001 because he was placed on the US blacklist of organizations and individuals who, due to terrorist activities, had restricted access to financial aid; ie: who were forbidden to enter the US.

Until his arrest by KFOR in July 2002, Daut Haradinaj directly participated in the attacks on the security forces of the Republic of Macedonia, together with National Liberation Army (NLA: also known as ANA; a re-emergence of the KLA) members, and he was also active in the area of arms and drugs trafficking, as part of the criminal group led by Ramush Haradinaj.

He was accused of war crimes committed against Kosovo's Albanians in June 1999.

Copyright 2004 Defense & Foreign Affairs/International Strategic Studies Association
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