by Stephanie van den Berg
THE HAGUE - Former Kosovo prime minister and guerrilla leader Ramush Haradinaj surrendered to the United Nations war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Wednesday, in a move that was widely praised.
Haradinaj was taken into the court's custody ahead of an upcoming court appearance.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan praised the former PM for setting "a good example of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)".
The European Union's Luxembourg presidency also hailed Haradinaj's step and called on "the political forces in Kosovo to form a new government as soon as possible".
Haradinaj, 35, resigned as prime minister Tuesday after he received information that he was indicted by the UN court over his role in the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. He denounced the indictment as a result of Serbian manipulation.
"I want to tell you that I am innocent of all the crimes of which I am accused," he told journalists on Tuesday.
The tribunal has not yet made the indictment public but it is reportedly related to his leading role in the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the war in Kosovo between the KLA and Serb security forces.
Two of Haradinaj's former allies, Lahi Brahimaj and Idriz Balaj also turned themselves in to the court on Wednesday. The three men are thought to be named on the same indictment, but the UN court would not give any details of the charges.
Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian, was a rebel commander in the KLA during the uprising against Serbian rule and remains a hero to many Kosovo Albanians, who revere him as a freedom fighter.
Brahimaj and Balaj were Haradinaj's close allies during the war. In 2003, Balaj was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by a United Nations court in the Kosovo capital Pristina for the murder of four ethnic Albanians after the war.
Brahimaj is a colonel in the emergency reaction force the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which was formed after the dismantling of the KLA.
The men are expected to appear within a few days before the court for their so-called initial appearance when they will formally enter a plea to the charges against them.
Haradinaj flew to the Netherlands from Pristina Wednesday amid international calls for calm in the breakaway Serbian province.
NATO peacekeepers were out in force to prevent any outbreak of violence in UN-administered Kosovo, with troops posted at each intersection on the road to the airport and a surveillance aircraft flying overhead.
NATO said Wednesday that the situation in Kosovo remained calm but added it is ready to quell any unrest that could occur.
The NATO mission in Kosovo (KFOR) can draw on an extra 1,100 troops deployed into the UN-run Serbian province this week, to add to some 18,000 already there, officials in Brussels said.
"The situation until now has been peaceful. NATO does not expect or anticipate violence," said the official at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Brussels headquarters.
"However it has done all the necessary prudent planning and improvement of its capabilities to be able to handle any contingency," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some 500 British soldiers arrived in Kosovo this week, on top of 600 extra German troops.
The NATO official in Brussels insisted that the extra troops were not reinforcements timed to deploy when the prime minister's indictment was announced.
They were deployed as part of long-planned exercises, he said. "The timing was truly a coincidence, but a fortuitous one," he said.
Before setting off to The Hague Haradinaj called on his followers to remain calm.
03/09/2005 20:15 GMT