Ex-Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj cleared of war crimes

Former Kosovo Prime minister Ramush Haradinaj (Getty Images)

A UN war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands has acquitted the former prime minister of Kosovo and two of his former Kosovo Liberation Army comrades for the second time on charges of murdering and torturing Serbs and their supporters in Kosovo's war for independence.

Today's verdicts came in The Hague court's first ever retrial, which was ordered after appeals judges branded the 2008 acquittal of former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and KLA fighter Idriz Balaj and the conviction of a third KLA commander, Lahi Brahimaj, a "miscarriage of justice" because of widespread intimidation of prosecution witnesses.

The acquittal clears the way for a possible return to the political scene for Mr Haradinaj, seen before his 2005 indictment as a unifying force in deeply divided Kosovo.