An appeals court upheld the verdict acquitting former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Fatmir Limaj, who is now deputy prime minister, clearing him of responsibility for the murders of two ethnic Albanian civilians in 1998.
The appeals court in the town of Gjakova/Djakovica on Wednesday upheld the verdict acquitting Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister Fatmir Limaj of war crimes.
The verdict cleared him of charges that he did not take reasonable and necessary measures to prevent the killing of two ethnic Albanian civilians in October 1998, when he was a Kosovo Liberation Army commander.
“The court assessed the [original] verdict and found that the first-instance court gave clear and complete reasons for the argument that the accused Fatmir Limaj was not the perpetrator of the criminal offence of a war crime against civilian population,” the verdict said.
The appeals court said the original trial was presented with “no single piece of evidence that the accused committed the criminal offence”.
In March this year, the Basic Court in Gjakova/Djakovica acquitted Limaj of all charges relating to the murders of the two civilians, Ramiz Hoxha and Selman Binishi.
He had been accused, as the commander of 121st Brigade of the Kosovo Liberation Army, of not acting to stop their killings.
Hoxha, from Bellanica in Kosovo, and Binishi, from Banja, Limaj’s birthplace, were seized on October 2, 1998 near the mosque in Bellanica and executed near the village of Kravasari, some four kilometres away.
The indictment alleged that Limaj saw the bodies of the victims and was aware that the crime had been committed.
The guerrilla commander turned politician has been tried and found not guilty of war crimes several times in the past.
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