Rahim Ademi

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Rahim Ademi (born January 30, 1954) is a Croatian Army general of Kosovo-Albanian origin.

Born and raised in the village of Karač, Vučitrn, Yugoslavia, now found in Kosovo. Ademi finished the Yugoslav military academy in Belgrade in 1976. He was assigned to a station in Rogoznica near Šibenik in Croatia where he married and had two children.

In 1986, the Military Court in Sarajevo convicted him of counterrevolutionary acts and Albanian irredentism, but after serving a year and a half in prison, the Supreme Military Court agreed with his appeal and acquitted him. He would spend the next years serving as an officer in Sinj until 1990 when the war in Croatia was starting and he deserted the Yugoslav People's Army in order to help create Croatian army formations in that part of the country.

He officially joined the Ministry of the Interior in 1991 and later became part of the Croatian Army forces. Between 1992 and 1993, as a Brigadier, he commanded Croatian military units in the Sinj area, with particular responsibility for the Peruča Dam^[1]. In 1993 he was assigned to the post of sub commander of the Gospić military district, but was relieved of duty later that year, after the infamous Medak pocket operation.

Ademi later served as a sub commander of the Split military district and was promoted to brigadier general for his achievements in Operation Storm in 1995. He remained there until 1999 when he was reassigned to the post of the Assistant Chief Inspector of the Armed Forces in Zagreb.

In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Ademi for alleged crimes against humanity committed against the Croatian Serbs in the aforementioned Medak pocket operation. He was in the custody of the Court but was later allowed to prepare his defense free. In November 2005, in line with its completion strategy, the ICTY referred the Ademi-Norac case to the Croatian judiciary. The trial began on 18 June 2007 in front of a special bench of the Zagreb County Court with Judge Marin Mrčela presiding.

Ademi claims that the Croatian government, under international pressure, relieved him of duty in Gospić in 1993 in order to make him a scapegoat, rather than implicating commanding officers Janko Bobetko, Mirko Norac and Mladen Markač. He also alleges that the Tribunal wanted him for questioning as far back as 1998 but that the government did not allow him to answer their questions. He is convinced that he is being sacrificed because of his Albanian descent.

On 30 May, 2008, he was acquitted of responsibility for atrocities committed against Serb prisoners by Croat troops during Operation Medak Pocket during the Croatian War of Independence.^[2]