page_title: Ramush Haradinaj
section_title: Second trial
hierarchical_section_title: Ramush Haradinaj / Trial for war crimes at ICTY / Second trial
caption_attribution_description: RH
context_page_description: Ramush Haradinaj is a Kosovar politician, leader of the AAK party, and was the 3rd Prime Minister of Kosovo. He is a former officer and leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and previously served as Prime Minister of Kosovo between 2004 and 2005.
  Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia Haradinaj was the KLA's commander for western Kosovo. Following the conflict, Haradinaj went into politics but soon resigned after becoming one of the KLA commanders charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia with war crimes and crimes against humanity against Serbs, Romani and Albanians between March and September 1998 during the Kosovo War. He was acquitted of all charges on 3 April 2008. The prosecution appealed against the acquittal and argued that it was not given enough time to secure the testimony of two critical witnesses. In 2010 the Appeals Chamber agreed and ordered a partial retrial in The Hague, Netherlands. The re-trial took just over two years and on 29 November 2012, Haradinaj and his co-defendant were acquitted for a second time on all charges.
context_section_description: The second trial began on August 18, 2011 in front of a second Trial Chamber made up of three different judges. Haradinaj was represented again by Ben Emmerson Q.C, Mr. Rodney Dixon Q.C. and Andrew Strong. The Prosecution called 56 witnesses against Haradinaj and again  Haradinaj called no defense witness.
  On November 29, 2012, Haradinaj was acquitted a second time.This time, due to the extreme diligence of the court and of the parties there was no allegation of witness intimidation. Instead the judges found that not only was there no evidence to convict Mr. Haradinaj, the Court held that the evidence established that he had acted to prevent criminal behaviour where he could.
  The central allegation against Haradinaj was that he participated in a criminal plan to persecute civilians. The Court directly addressed this allegation and stated in its summary of the judgment that:
  "Even if the existence of such common plan were established, which is not the finding of the Chamber, there is nothing in the evidence to indicate that Ramush Haradinaj or Idriz Balaj may have been involved in any such common plan. On the contrary, the evidence establishes that when Ramush Haradinaj found out about the detention and mistreatment of Skender Kuçi, he went to Jabllanicë/Jablanica to speak to Nazmi Brahimaj regarding Skender Kuçi’s release, telling him that “no such thing should happen anymore because this is damaging our cause”. When Witness 3 was brought to Ramush Haradinaj after his escape from Jabllanicë/Jablanica and subsequent apprehension by Lahi Brahimaj, Ramush Haradinaj offered food and accommodation to Witness 3 and released him to his family. No credible evidence has been presented by the Prosecution to establish that Ramush Haradinaj was even aware of the crimes committed at the KLA compound in Jabllanicë/Jablanica."
  After this ruling, there were serious questions raised as to why Haradinaj was ever indicted in the first place. Indeed, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Madonald of River Glaven QC, said: "This prosecution was a stupid attempt to equate resistance with aggression. It was an embarrassment to the international community." The governments of both Albania and Kosovo have demanded a public inquiry into the behavior of the Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte over her conduct to bring this indictment forward.
  Geoffrey Nice, the ICTY prosecutor in the Milošević case, wrote in a column in Koha Ditore that at least three experienced prosecution lawyers advised Del Ponte against indicting Ramush Haradinaj since it could not be proved he was guilty. One of those lawyers was Andrew T Cayley Q.C. one of the most esteemed lawyers at the Tribunal and currently the Chief Prosecutor at the Cambodian Tribunal. He stated that he felt increasing pressure to bring the case despite an acute lack of evidence. Sir Geoffrey Nice Q.C. commented that the pressure to bring the case against Ramush Haradinaj stemmed from the lead Prosecutor at the time, Carla Del Ponte and he speculated that she wanted to use the indictment against Haradinaj as a "coin" to trade with Belgrade in order to convince the Serbian Government to hand over its high-profile war criminal fugitives, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić.
  After a thorough review of the initial evidence, Andrew T. Cayley Q.C. wrote to the Chief Prosecutor at the time in which he told her that the prosecution could not proceed on the evidence it had. That report was immediately discarded and Cayley was reprimanded for his views. As a result of the manner in which the chief prosecutor ignored Cayley's advice and pursued the indictment against Haradinaj, three senior prosecutors Geoffery Nice Q.C., Andrew T Cayley Q.C. and Mark Harmon left the office of the Prosecutor.
  On 25 April 2008, the ICTY officially opened indictments against Astrit Haraqija and his councilor Bajrush Morina for contempt of court in Haradinaj's case. On July 23, 2009 Astrit Haraqija was acquitted of all charges by the Appeals Chamber.
  The Court sentenced Bajrush Morina to three months imprisonment for attemptin
caption: Banner to show support for Haradinaj in the streets of Pristina. September 2010
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