At his initial appearance before the ICTY in The Hague, Haradinaj, 36, who was a regional leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998 and 1999, pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of crimes against humanity and 20 counts of the violation of the laws and customs of war.
His two deputy commanders, Idriz Balaj, 34, and Lahi Brahimaj, 35, also pleaded not guilty at their initial appearance before the tribunal today.
Ramush's lawyer, Briton Ben Emmerson, said he was going to ask for his client's provisional release pending trial, stressing that Haradinaj was the first top ranking official in a country to have surrendered to the ICTY on the same day when he received the indictment.
Last Tuesday, Haradinaj said at a session of his government in Pristina that he had been indicted by the ICTY and that he would step down from the premier's post so that he could turn himself in t the Hague. The next day he and the other two indictees Balaj and Brahimaj flew to the Netherlands to surrender to the Hague-based tribunal.
The UN Civil Administrator in Kosovo, Soren Jessen-Peterssen, has said that he is wiling to give all the necessary assurances for Haradinaj's release pending trial. Haradinaj became Kosovo's prime minister after November 2004 elections.
During the 1998/9 conflict in Kosovo, Haradinaj commanded a Kosovo Liberation Army unit in the Decani area, which was considered a stronghold of Albanian guerrillas. His uncle Brahimaj was a member of the unit.
Haradinaj, Brahimaj and Balaj are charged with involvement in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at consolidating the KLA's control of the western part of Kosovo known as Metohija. They are also charged with attacking, persecuting and forcibly transferring Serbian civilians and preventing any form of cooperation between the Albanians and Roma on the one side and the Serbs on the other. All the crimes alleged in the indictment were committed between March 1 and September 1998 in the municipalities of Decani, Pec, Djakovica, Istok and Klina against Serbian civilians and those Albanians and Roma believed to be collaborating with the Serbs or not supporting the KLA.
The indictment says that the three men are individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering, committing or otherwise aiding and abetting the commission of the alleged crimes.