EU-run court acquits ex-Kosovo guerrilla leader

An EU-run court in Kosovo on Wednesday acquitted a top ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander-turned-politician and three associates accused of torturing and killing civilians during the 1998-1999 war.
British judge Jonathan Welford-Carroll, who presided over the three member panel of two European judges and one local judge, said the court found Fatmir Limaj and three other former high-ranking members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) not guilty.
The acquittal in Kosovo's highest profile war crimes trial so far was widely expected as the court in March threw out key testimony against the four provided by former KLA fighter Agim Zogaj, also known as Witness X.
Zogaj was found dead in September in Germany, where authorities ruled his death was a suicide.
As a former member of the KLA, the pro-independence guerrilla force that fought Serbia's army and police, he was reportedly under Limaj's direct command.
Advising the parties about their right to appeal the ruling to the supreme court of Kosovo, Welford-Carroll said that the court had reached its decision "in the light of exclusion of the evidence of Agim Zogaj".
Italian prosecutor Maurizio Salustro said he would appeal against the verdict.
Limaj and nine other guerrillas were accused of committing war crimes in 1999 against Serbs and Albanians at a detention centre in the village of Klecka in central Kosovo.
Salustro alleged that eight prisoners -- seven Serbs and one Albanian -- were killed by Limaj's subordinates in Klecka.
In March the court already acquitted six low-ranking members of the KLA as the first step after the key testimony of Zogaj was thrown out.
Limaj is now a lawmaker and deputy president of prime minister Hashim Thaci's ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).
In Belgrade, Serbia's war crimes prosecutor said the acquittal was "shameful and unjust".
"The question is whether anybody in Kosovo will ever be convicted for crimes committed against Serbs," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Of around 13,000 victims of the Kosovo conflict around 10,500 were ethnic Albanians while more than 2,200 were Serbs, according to a prominent Serbian human rights group.