Angry Serbs Burn EU Flags over War Crimes Acquittal

Ultra-nationalists don't want efforts to joined European Union to continue

Angry Serb ultra-nationalists on Friday burned flags of the EU, US, Nato and Kosovo, protesting a UN court's acquittal of ethnic Albanian former rebel chief Ramush Haradinaj on charges of war crimes against Serbs. Gathering in front of the Serbian presidency in central Belgrade, several hundred staunch supporters of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) demanded the authorities give up the country's bid to become a European Union member in protest at the acquittal. 

The ICTY ruled Thursday to clear Haradinaj, former Kosovo prime minister and a wartime rebel chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and two of his comrades on charges of committing war crimes against Serb civilians during the 1998-1999 conflict in Kosovo. "We do not blame those (judges) in the Hague, but those who give them orders and these are the US, EU and Nato," Natasa Jovanovic, a top SRS official, told the rally.