Hague clears KLA suspects again

Fatmir Limaj (centre) was a local KLA commander in 1998-99

The UN court in The Hague has upheld the acquittal of two Kosovo Albanians on war crime charges relating to the conflict with Serb forces in 1998-99.

The appeals chamber confirmed the 2005 ruling that former rebel commanders Fatmir Limaj and Isak Musliu were not guilty of murder and torture.

It also upheld the conviction of a third man in the case, Haradin Bala.

He was sentenced to 13 years in jail - the first Kosovo Albanian to be convicted by the UN war crimes court.

Citing procedural errors, prosecutors had appealed against the 2005 acquittals.

However, Presiding Judge Fausto Pocar said the appeal had been dismissed "in its entirety" by the chamber.

The initial ruling was deemed to have "reasonably found" that Mr Limaj and Mr Musliu did not "incur criminal responsibility for any of the offences charged in the indictment".

'Biased' court

Mr Limaj and Mr Isak, former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members, had been accused of torturing, murdering and treating with cruelty detainees in a prison camp in Lapushnik, central Kosovo.

The camp held Serbs and ethnic Albanian civilians, accused of collaborating with Belgrade.

The UN court was set up to try war crimes and crimes against humanity from the conflicts that accompanied the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Several Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims have already been jailed by the court.

Belgrade has accused the tribunal of bias against Serbs and of failing to pursue ethnic Albanians suspects.

The KLA conducted a guerrilla war against Serb forces until a Nato aerial bombing campaign in 1999 drove them out of the province.

Kosovo has since been administered by the UN, though it technically remains a province of Serbia.

Its ethnic Albanian majority wants full independence - but Belgrade has said it must remain part of Serbia.