Byzantine Blog

The "International Court" which is Neither International, Nor Court

Yesterday's announcement that The Hague prosecution has issued indictments against the former Kosovo Albanian provisional minister Astrit Harachi and his assistant Bajrush Morina, charged of intimidating witnesses against recently acquitted KLA war criminal Ramush Haradinaj, has raised more questions, rather than providing some urgently needed answers.

If these two indictments were meant to demonstrate Hague's "impartiality" and to cover up the fact that Kangaroo court has acquitted of all 37 charges the KLA butcher responsible for countless atrocities and ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Roma in Kosovo-Metohija province, they didn't need to bother, because the entirely symbolic gesture is completely off the mark and sorely inadequate compensation for the Hague's catastrophic handling of each and every case involving war crimes against Serbian population throughout former Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, the involvement of the main officials who were supposed to represent the UN Secretary General in the Serbian province and who were in position to protect the witnesses and provide evidence in the case against Haradinaj, such as former UNMIK chief Søren Jessen-Petersen and his associates, or the current UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker, but who, instead, chose to support Haradinaj, enabling the murder spree in which 9 prosecution witnesses were killed, remains unaddressed by the Hague.

Along the same lines, there is also a small issue regarding Ruecker's American deputy, former brigadier general Steven Schook, who reportedly went further than hugging Haradinaj in public, telling the reporters how much he misses the thug and "getting drunk with Ramush Haradinaj once a week" — according to the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) which investigated his administration, Ruecker's deputy Steven Schook was directly responsible for at least one murdered witness, after he had "revealed the whereabouts of a man who had testified against Haradinaj", who was living under a UN witness protection program.

If the Hague can't issue indictments against Americans, Germans or Danes who, while representing the almighty "international community" in the Serbian province, showed contempt for the so-called international court, obstructed its work and directly or indirectly exposed prosecution witnesses to harassment, intimidation and murders, if the Hague tribunal can only imitate a real court by prosecuting few token local thugs who went door-to-door breaking arms and legs, then The Hague might drop the charade already and stop claiming to be something it is not, because in that case, it is neither international, nor court.

Written Testimony of the Prosecution Witness Against Haradinaj

Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti published excerpts from the written and signed testimony by Kujtim Berisha, ethnic Roma who personally witnessed a number of atrocious crimes committed by Haradinaj's gang of KLA cutthroats, who suffered in the hands of Haradinaj's butchers and who paid his willingness to testify in the Hague tribunal with his life. Berisha was killed by Haradinaj's thugs in Montenegro, where he was living as the Hague tribunal's "protected witness".

Kujtim Berisha testified before the Hague investigators in May 2004. As Ramush Haradinaj's first neighbor, Berisha described how Ramush with his brother Daut transported large quantities of weapons from Albania during 1997, after which he started a forced mobilization of Albanians for KLA, from his village Glodjani and the surrounding villages in Metohija.

Cowardly Murders of Policemen

"In March 1998 I worked in Musa Haskaj's pub in Rznic. One day Serbian policemen from [the town of] Decani came in the police vehicle — Momo Stijovic, N. Otovic and two more whom I didn't know. They met with [Albanian] Faik N. from the Gornja Luka village and asked to borrow his Mercedes-Benz, so they could go to Glodjani. Faik agreed. They went toward Glodjani, and we took tractor to the forest to cut wood. On our way, we met armed Albanians from Glodjani who were withdrawing toward Ratish. One of them said they were just shooting at Serbs and that Daut Haradinaj killed two policemen, one was N. Otovic and he didn't know the other. He added that the third policeman was wounded."

Rounding Up Roma for Forced Labor

This event made Berisha run away from the village. Half-way toward Djakovica he met two Serbian policemen who asked him to return home, promising they will restore order. The order was restored for a while, but under the pressure of the "international community", Serbian police was forced to leave Berisha's village Rznic.

"As they left, Ramush's people moved in to our village. They blocked the roads and we couldn't go anywhere any more. They rounded up us Roma and forced us to fill the sacks with sand for their trenches alongside Decani-Prizren road, and to dig KLA trenches around Glodjani. During that time, Ramush Haradinaj assigned his brother Daut and Idriz Baljaj with transporting weapons and ammunition from Albania. Whenever they were crossing the road Decani-Prizren they forced me and two other Roma, Besim Haskaj and Muarem N., to go ahead of them, so that they wouldn't be ambushed by the Serbian police. Later on, they used us as shields for Haradinaj's 500-men units. They wouldn't go anywhere before we were sent to check the ground first."

Monstrous Tortures by the KLA "Freedom Fighters"

Then the summer came and it was the harvesting time. Since Berisha was combine operator by profession, Haradinaj's KLA command for Metohija ordered him to take a combine and start harvesting the fields. The order enraged Idriz Baljaj, called Togger, Haradinaj's right hand, because he wanted to keep using Berisha as a human shield for his actions. Baljaj was in the meantime promoted in the terrorist KLA hierarchy and became the "military police commander" of the KLA in Rznic, where he formed his headquarters.

"At the beginning of July, Idriz Baljaj broke into my house during night with four other members of the KLA military police, dressed in black uniforms. Togger handcuffed me, they took my wife Sanija out of the bed and kept beating us on the way to KLA headquarters in Rznic. They threw me into a well over three meters deep as soon as we arrived, and took Sanija inside. A while later Gani Zenija and Taf Chefaj who were guarding Togger took me out of there. As soon as they brought me inside, Togger started beating me. I fainted out of the beatings. When I came to, I was tied up on a metal bed. This was their improvised torture machine. They ran electric currents through my body many times, before finally untying me and throwing me into a hallway. I was saved from the certain death by Sami Haskaj and few other neighbors.

"At that time, members of the KLA were bringing in four tied-up men. In order to prevent me from seeing who they were, they closed me into a metal safe. I was there more than 20 minutes. When they took me out, I recognized the [Albanian] policeman Zenun Gashi, then Mishin N. from Nepolje and his son Salji, and one other Albanian, someone later told me he was from the village Kosuric. Right there in front of the KLA headquarters, they ordered the prisoners to turn toward an apple tree. Togger took out the knife from his belt and cut Zenun Gashi's thigh straight through to the bone. One of his men brought salt and poured it into the wound, and the other was forcefully suturing the wound filled with salt, with some rusty needle tool, over the pants... Zenun screamed in pain and begged for help, but it was of no use...

"Togger then approached Mishin's son Salji and cut his nose off with the knife. He gave the cut nose to his father and forced him to eat it.

"He was threatening to cut me up all the time. Sami Haskaj kept asking him to let me go, while Togger was constantly trying to take me to execution with the others. Finally, he somehow changed his mind and let me and my wife go. As soon as we came home, my wife told me about how she was raped and humiliated. Later on, Sami Haskaj and Shemsudin Ceku came to my house and told me Togger won't bother me in future if I don't talk.

Mountain of Mutilated Corpses

"Four days later, on the road to Donji Ratish, Togger also killed the man who was supplying KLA with cigarettes, a Roman Catholic Albanian, whose name was Tush N. Even though this man could get to Ramush Haradinaj personally, Togger kidnapped Tush's wife, raped her with his group and then executed both of them. I saw their bodies when we were harvesting near the Radonjic Lake. We saw many human corpses right next to the ditch. Hadzi Zenaj and I approached and saw at least hundred massacred and killed people. We recognized Zenun Gashi, Misin N. and his son Salji, then Tush N. and his wife. We also recognized two elderly Serbian women who were massacred. Zenaj recognized two Serbian policemen killed personally by Haradinaj and Toger in Rznic, after dreadful tortures. We couldn't recognize anyone else, because the corpses were terribly mutilated, or in the process of decomposing. I heard that many more people were thrown straight in the lake and that their identity will never be discovered, nor who killed them."

Torture and Murders of Serbs and Disloyal Albanians Ordered by Ramush Haradinaj

Berisha also testified about a meeting of the KLA headquarters for Metohija, which was held in the backyard of the mosque in the Rznic village.

"While we were digging trenches around the mosque, at the meeting also attended by one KLA member from Drenica, the question was raised who killed Serbian policeman from Decani Slobo Prascevic and why. Prascevic was a commander of the police department and KLA apparently had lots of problems with the Serbian security forces because of his murder. Even though this meeting was like some sort of investigation, Togger stepped forth and said in front of everyone that Prascevic was killed by Daut Haradinaj and himself. He described how they ambushed Prascevic in front of the Orthodox church in Ratish, spraying his car with bullets. That's when they heavily wounded [Albanian] Kimeta N. from Ratish, who held her small child in the hands. Baljaj, called Togger, also said that all the actions against the Serbs and Albanian traitors have been ordered and approved by Ramush Haradinaj. This ended all talks about the murder of Prascevic."

After enduring torture, Berisha was again ordered to harvest the wheat in the valley of the river Drim.

"Once we gathered all the wheat on the Albanian fields, Hadzi Zenaj ordered me to harvest the field of the two Serbian women, mother and daughter from Gronji Ratish. We continued working near their house the next day. Around 11 a.m. Togger came, followed by two of his policemen. They took out of the house two elderly and weak women, beating them all along. They put them in their jeep and left in the direction of Radonjic Lake. Some twenty minutes later we heard few short gunshots. Hadzi Zenaj told me it was Togger who killed those two women too."

Kujtim Berisha, Hague's "protected witness", was killed two weeks before the start of Haradinaj's trial, hit by a car in an empty, deserted street in the suburbs of Podgorica, capital of neighboring Montenegro. The 26-year-old driver of the Mercedes-Benz who killed Berisha and gravely wounded his nephew and one other man, told Montenegro's investigative judge that he was blinded by the car coming from the opposite direction. But Berisha's nephew Salja, who was with his uncle, testified that there were no other cars anywhere near at the time.

Recommended: The E.U.’s Double Game in the Balkans, by Srdja Trifkovic (ChroniclesMagazine.org)