[A-PAL] A-PAL NEWSLETTER 7/6/01

[Alice Mead]

A-PAL NEWSLETTER (ALBANIAN PRISONER ADVOCACY)
July 6, 2001


                                               A-PAL STATEMENT
237 Albanian prisoners still remain in Serb prisons, approximately 
117 are political prisoners and 120 are criminal cases.
       Please ask your leaders and foreign affairs officials to 
support the position below:
We strongly urge you to withhold releasing the funds for the FRY 
until the prisoners return to Kosova, where, in accordance with UN 
1244, the citizens of Kosova will receive whatever justice is due 
them, based on the facts of their arrest, detentions, interrogations, 
evidence, torture, and imprisonment.

On or around June 26, 2001, Foreign Minister Svilanovic told the UN 
Security Council when they traveled to Belgrade that they were 
prepared to return the prisoners to Kosova. He confirmed this in a 
follow-up meeting with Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Center a 
few days later, and this announcement appeared in the media on 
several occassions. He told Ms. Kandic repeatedly that they would 
return ALL the prisoners, one hundred per cent of them. According to 
our prisoner office in Prishtina, Mr. Haekkerup has made arrangements 
for the transfer of the criminal prisoners to prisons in Kosova at 
Dubrava and other sites. He said that these arrangements will take 
place after the transfer of Mr. Milosvevic to The Hague.

According to the Dayton Agreement and the UN Geneva Conventions, 
political prisoners must be released upon the cessation of 
hostilities following a war. The prisoners should have been released 
on June 9, 1999. At the current rate of the "judicial reviews," the 
Albanian prisoners are being released one or two per week. Since 
there are still over 100 left, this means it will be one more year 
before they are allowed to go home. This delay does not protect their 
basic human rights. One prisoner who just arrived home recently died 
in June at age 42. Another, age 58, is severely ill in the Prishtina 
hospital. Another in prison has a shattered eye and jaw and is near 
starvation. Another, now in Nis Prison, has shards of NATO bomb 
lodged in his chest. Others have contracted TB. All suffer from 
malnutrition.  Another year of this harsh imprisonment could prove 
fatal for some of these weakened citizens. Their collective "crime" 
was asking for NATO intervention in Kosova. According to the 
Milosevic regime, this made all Albanians "terrorists." Now that the 
perpetrator of crimes in the FRY is imprisoned, it makes no sense to 
further detain the victims. One prisoner was just released from 
Gllogovc. Read the details of how people were beaten and tortured 
during the round-ups in the Gllogovc area. The behavior of Serb 
police and military in those villages was appalling.
_______________________________________________
                                ICRC NEWSBRIEF
      Pristina, 07.07.2001 -ICRC ACCOMPANIES MORE PRISONERS FROM SERBIAN JAILS

      Today,  the ICRC accompanied to Kosovo one person released by the
      authorities in Serbia. The person released from Vranje prison comes
      from Gllogovc/Glogovac.
A-PAL has interviewed many released prisoners from the villages 
around Gllogovc detained and tortured at the Gllogovc police station. 
This is also the area where they rounded up over 30 teenage boys, 
taken from their homes early in the morning. The boys were tortured 
as severely as the adults both in Gllogovc and later in Lipjan. This 
is the type of brutal method used by the Milosevic regime to arrest 
Albanian "terrorists," the same methods were used to arrest nearly 
all the political prisoners taken to Serbia, including the 143 from 
Gjakova.
____________________________________________________________
from : Humanitarian Law Center, Belgrade
CRIMES AND DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE
Glogovac, 1998-1999

Some 200 ethnic Albanian civilians were killed by Serbian security 
forces in just two days - 30 April and 1 May 1999 - at the Kosovo 
industrial town of Glogovac (Gllogovc).  Information gathered by the 
Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) indicates that 77 men were shot to 
death near the Feronikl smelting plant.  Their remains have not been 
found to this day.  The whereabouts of over 20 minors who were held 
in the mosque at ?irez (Qirez) village, remain unknown.  Thirteen men 
taken from Krajkove village by regular army troops are still listed 
as missing.  Following the deployment of the international forces in 
Kosovo, 68 individual graves were discovered in ?ikatovo (Cikatove e 
re) near Glogovac.  These graves contained no human remains, only 
items of clothing identified as belonging to some of the men whose 
bodies were found in a canal near the Feronikl plant as well as 
several of the minors imprisoned in the ?irez mosque.
The Feronikl plant is situated in the vicinity of the Glogovac police 
station.  Its workforce included a large number of Albanians until 
April 1998 when the plant was closed down and became a base for 
members of the Special Police Forces from Serbia.  The fires in its 
furnaces, however, were not doused.  Witnesses interviewed by the HLC 
alleged that bodies of killed Albanians were burned in the furnaces 
for the first time on 31 May 1998.  Eight Albanian civilians were 
killed that day by police in Poklek (Poklek i ri), a village some 
three kilometers from Glogovac.  Independently of each other, HLC and 
Human Rights Watch researchers established that there was no fighting 
in the village, that the inhabitants put up no resistance when their 
homes were searched, and that police without any provocation shot 10 
men and then removed the bodies.  HLC investigations brought out 
that, apart from local police, at least three police officers from 
Kosovo Polje were involved in liquidating these men.
The Glogovac Police Chief from 31 May 1998 to mid-May 1999 was Petar 
Damjanac, who has since been transferred to the Belgrade Police 
Department, and the officer in charge at the police station was Raša 
Lakuši?.  The on-site investigation at Poklek, and all others in the 
Drenica area during the NATO bombing, was carried out by Inspector 
Milenko Lepovi? of the Glogovac Police Department.  Several members 
of the Motorized Unit attached to the Kosovo Polje Police Department 
were assigned to collect bodies and transport them to Serbia.
The killing of the Poklek men and disappearance of their bodies
31 May 1998
The 10 Albanian men shot by the police in Poklek on 31 May 1998 were: 
the brothers Hajriz (53) and Muhamet (50) Hajdini; Ahmet Berisha; the 
brothers Sahit and Sefer Qori, Ramu Aslani, Ferat Hoti, Fidam 
Berisha, Blerim Shushani, and Adrian Deliu.
Villagers recounted to HLC researchers in June 1998 that the police 
came to Poklek around noon in four armored carriers.  Shortly 
afterward, gunfire was heard and they saw a police vehicle leave for 
Glogovac, carrying the dead body of a policeman who had been shot in 
the village.  The witnesses claimed that none of the Albanians in 
their village was armed and hence could not have killed the 
policeman.  The police then ordered the villagers to assemble in the 
yard of Sahit Qori's house.  Once they had gathered in the yard, the 
women and children were ordered to go to the nearby village of 
Vasiljevo while the 10 men were detained.  Among the police, the 
villagers recognized Police Chief Damjanac, several local policemen, 
and Inspector Lepovi?.  The other police officers on the scene were 
unknown to them.  As they were leaving the village, the women heard 
gunfire.  Other HLC witnesses who at the time lived in Glogovac, near 
the Feronikl plant, said they saw a police vehicle loaded with men's 
bodies enter the plant grounds.  A short while later, the vehicle, 
this time empty, was driven out of the grounds and into the police 
station parking lot.  When some of the villagers who had fled 
returned to Poklek the next day, they found the dead body of a young 
man, Adrian Deliu, and blood stains in front of Sahit Qori's house.
After the incident, the talk among Albanians was that the bodies of 
the Poklek men were burned at the Feronikl plant, in a furnace whose 
opening measures about one square meter.  There was never any 
investigation into the killing of the 10 men or the burning of the 
bodies of nine of them.
The shooting of men at the Feronikl plant
1 May 1999
On 13 April 1999, members of the police force, regular army and 
paramilitary groups, the latter identified by HLC witnesses as 
"Šešelj's men" and "Arkan's men," were forcibly displacing Albanians 
from villages in the Glogovac area.  The men fled to the woods, and 
the women to ?irez, Šikatovo (Shikatov) and Vrbovec (Verbovc).  Over 
200 men were seized in the woods and on the road to ?irez and taken 
to the mosque in that village.  A count brought out 214 adults and 
over 20 boys between the ages of 13 and 18.  They spent the night in 
the mosque, guarded by five regular army members.
The next morning, police in blue camouflage uniforms and 
paramilitaries arrived.  They loaded the men into two military and 
two yellow civilian trucks and drove them off in the direction of 
Glogovac.  The minors remained in the mosque, in the hands of regular 
army troops. All trace of them has been lost.  HLC field research 
indicates that at least 77 men were shot dead near the Feronikl 
plant.  Of the men on two trucks who were lined up to be shot, three 
survived: Bahar Topilla, a student in Kosovska Mitrovica, born on 30 
January 1980; Xhafer Veliqi, a bricklayer from Poljac village, born 
on 20 February 1955; and Bajram Hani from Doševac (Doshevc) village.
The HLC was unable to ascertain what happened to the bodies of the 
men shot near the Feronikl plant or to the teenagers held by the 
regular troops in the ?irez mosque: Beqir (55), Ilir (20) and  Xheme 
(24) Sejdiu; Rahman Nura (27) from Likošane (Likoshan); Fatmir (25) 
and Deli (64) Nika; Rahman Topilla(34); Hysni Morina (24); Halit 
(53), Sabit (49) and Nazmi (43) Maloku; Sokol (54) and Kushtrim (19) 
Krasniqi from Gllanasele; Hisni (28), Avni (25), Veli (23), Lumni 
(21), Haki (18), Mehmet (44), Nuhi (25), Nazmi (39), Nuradin (17) and 
Hazir (17) Dvorani from Trstenik (Terstenik); Shpend (28), Bekim (29) 
and Arben (24) Bajraktari; Xhevdet (24) and Shpend (18) Qori from 
Glogovac; Beqir (46) and   Ilir (17) Beqiri; Izet (28) and Muharem 
(31) Berisha; Ujup (52), Hamit (19) and  Jetulah (17) Ademi; Gani 
Hajra (53); Qamil Baliu (32); Sherif (34) and Fejze (16) Zeqiri; 
Bahri (16) i Safet (15) Sokoli; Ramadan (54) and Feriz (15) Ramadani; 
Brahim (52) and Xhevat (17) Ademi; Milaim (20), Hetem (51) and Bilall 
(49) Bilalli from Shtutice; Bajram (46), Ylmi (51), Ruxhdi (22), Ali 
(49) and Burim (17) Aliu; Avni Smajli (24); Ramadan (64) and Shaban 
(60) Rexhepi; Lulzim Ferati (21) from Qirez; Mehdi (22) i Aziz (17) 
Heta; Xhemail Tahiraj (16) from Cikatove e re; Zimer (54) i Agron 
(23) Veliqi from Polluzhe; Hashim Uka (60) iz Gradice; Shyqri Veliqi 
(13); Hamit (63), Tefik (32), Arton (20), Qazim (52) and Veton (17) 
Xani from Polac; Tahir (52), Nexhmedin (24), Rrahim (51), Betim (13), 
Bekim (22) and Shpejtim (16) Prokshi from Verbovc; Agron Brahimi 
(17); and Sami  Sefedini (16) from Poklek i ri.
Rifat Bilalli, a chemistry teacher at the elementary school in 
Shtutice, spoke with HLC researchers in January 2000 and described 
how the men taken from ?irez in the military trucks were shot:
There were 35 men in my group.  They put us on a yellow civilian 
truck. Halil (45) and Kadri (35) Baliu from Shtutice, Abdullah Salihu 
(40) from Baksa, Zymer Maloku (65), and Shaban Veliqi (30) from 
Polluzhe, Muharem Istogu (40) from Verbovc, Ilir (17) and Ismet (45) 
Dvorani from Terstenik, Ramadan (45) and Sahit (45) Nike from 
Gllanaselle were with me.  The second truck, a military one, started 
out at the same time as ours.  There were three soldiers with us and 
another two in the driver's cab.  They made us sing the song 'Who 
dares say, who dares lie, that Serbia is small."  We drove for about 
10 kilometers, looking down at the floor of the truck.  The trucks 
stopped at the Feronikl plant and we stood there for about 20 
minutes. Then they ordered us to look where they had lined up the 
group from the military truck.  More than 40 men were lined up about 
50 meters away from us.  Six policemen were standing in front of 
them.  We watched as they opened fire at the lined-up men, who fell 
into a big hole behind them.  Our truck moved off as soon as that 
group had been shot.  They made us sing Chetnik songs again.  They 
took us to the police station in Gllogovc.
Behar Topilla was among the prisoners who were lined up to be shot. 
In his statement to the HLC, he described how he survived:
The truck I was on started out first and was followed by the other, 
yellow one, which was also full of prisoners.  There were seven 
policemen or paramilitaries - I don't rightly know what they were - 
on my truck.  They made us sing Chetnik songs and beat us as we sang. 
A policeman hit the man sitting next to me on the head with a bottle. 
He cried out from the pain, to which the policeman said, 'Just a 
little more' and stuck him in the head with a knife.  Black blood 
poured from his head.  I was scared he would do the same thing to me. 
Another one, about 30, tall, fair, with a short beard and wearing a 
camouflage uniform and a blue scarf tied round his head, was sitting 
next to me.  'What are you looking at,' he yelled at me, drew out a 
knife and cut the middle finger of my right hand.  Then he plunged 
the knife into my left shoulder and neck.  Then the driver called 
out, 'Djuro, come over here," and he went off.  The truck stopped at 
the Feronikl plant at about 2 p.m.  They ordered us to get off and 
said we were to line up next to a big hole in the ground.  As I was 
climbing down, I noticed that the man who had been stabbed in the 
head by the paramilitary stayed in the truck.  He was dead.  A 
reservist in police uniform was standing beside the truck.  He was 
about 40, dark, and wore glasses.  He had a notebook and was writing 
something in it.  It looked like he was counting us.  As I went past 
him, one of the policemen asked him, 'Commander, what do we do?'  I 
heard the name 'Slavko' but don't know if it was the name of the one 
with the glasses or the one who asked what to do.  The one with the 
notebook and glasses gave the liquidation order.  'Liquidate them 
all,' he said.  There were bursts of shots from automatic rifles.  I 
fell down at the same time as the first men to be hit.  The firing 
went on until everybody had fallen.  It didn't last more than 10 
minutes.  When we were all down on the ground, they went on shooting. 
I was wounded in the nose and left eye when a man next to me was hit. 
Some men were still alive, moaning.  I heard the policemen ask each 
other if anyone was still alive and if they should go on shooting. 
One of them suggested throwing a grenade, after which one really did 
explode.  Then there was silence.  Like through a fog I heard them 
say, 'Let's go."  I lay there quite still for a while and then I 
heard a cry.  It was hard getting the bodies off me.  Crawling among 
the bodies, blood, cut-off arms and legs, I managed to find the 
wounded man.  He was hit in the stomach, leg, arms and head.  He 
lived only long enough to ask me to tell his brother Driton in 
Dobroshevc that he, his brother Arben and uncle Shpend were shot near 
the plant.  I was the only one to survive.
Rifat Bilalli and the other men taken to the police station in the 
yellow truck were held until 6 May and questioned by State Security 
inspectors.  Other Albanians, including women and children, were also 
imprisoned there.  On 6 May, regular army soldiers arrived, separated 
the prisoners into three groups and drove them to villages in which 
troops had been stationed.  With 25 other men, Bilalli was taken to 
Vukovac village where they dug trenches and performed other work 
until 15 May.
The disappearance of the minors
  ?irez, 1 May 1999
Xhafer Veliqi last saw his 13-year-old son Shyqri on 1 May at the 
?irez mosque when he and the other the men were taken away in trucks:
They led out two groups, leaving 110 of us, including the under-age 
boys, in the mosque.  A soldier they called 'Bosanac' came up to me 
and said, 'I'm sorry, but you're all going to be shot.  But don't 
worry about the children; they'll stay in our hands and will all be 
released.
Veliqi was the last man out of the mosque.  He recalls that more than 
20 teenagers remained with the regular army.  Before he climbed into 
the truck, he heard a paramilitary say to 'Bosanac': "Do what you 
like with the kids; we're not coming back with the trucks."  The 
fourth truck with Veliqi and another 30 prisoners stopped by the 
canal near the Feronikl plant.  He described what happened then:
They took 10 prisoners off first.  The last one had to carry a 
10-liter jerrycan of gasoline.  They made the prisoners get into the 
hole.  I didn't see what they did to them but I heard bursts of 
shots.  A short while later, they did the same with the second group. 
Then it was the turn of the third group, mine.  There were 12 of us; 
the last carried a jerrycan.  Bajram was in front of me.  We were 
about 20 meters from the hole when we both started to run, at the 
same time.  Shots came after us.  I was hit in two places.  The 
paramilitaries chased us for about two kilometers.  I went on running 
though I was wounded.  We managed to hide in a nearby woods.  We 
heard them searching for us.  We kept very still and waited for them 
to go.  When we were quite sure they were gone, we went to Dashevc.
The disappearance of 13 prisoners
Krajkove, 10 May 1999
Military police came to the Glogovac police station on 6 May and 
separated into two groups the prisoners who had been brought from the 
?irez mosque. One group was taken to the penitentiary at Lipljan and 
the second, including Zene Krasniqi, to Poterk village.  His group 
was divided again there:
One group stayed in Poterk, another was taken to Vukovc and my group, 
25 of us, was taken to Krajkove.  A military unit, HAD 105, was 
stationed there.  It was under the command of a major called Puzo.  I 
heard from their talk that he was from Raška.  He was tall and thin 
and had a mustache.  He wasn't with us all the time but came round a 
lot of times.  I also remember a Captain Andjelkovi? from Kraljevo. 
He was about 35.  Besides the army men, there were also some 
reservists and members of paramilitary groups.  It was only later 
that I heard they were "Franki's men."  They wore strange hats, like 
cowboy hats.  I remember two of them who called each other 'Djuka' 
and 'Niki.'  They made us dig canals, trenches, wash their clothes, 
and when the NATO planes were flying around or when they went into 
deserted Albanian villages, they made us go in front of them.  On the 
morning of 10 May, Major Puzo came in a military truck with some 
soldiers.  He looked at us for a while and then separated out Besim, 
Zenel, Mustafa, Rrahim, Arben, Ramadan, Selami, Ismet and his son 
whose name I don't remember, Ferat, Abedin, Shefqet and Nebi.  I 
don't know where he took them but they never came back.  Nor did 
Major Puzo.  They held us until 15 May when, without any explanation, 
the soldiers told us we were free to go.
The families of the 13 men taken from Krajkove subsequently heard 
that some people hiding in the woods had seen 13 men digging up 
bodies and loading them into trucks under military and police guard. 
No independent confirmation of this report was available.
Yugoslav Army report on sanitation of combat zones in Kosovo
According to a Yugoslav Army report carried by Nedeljni Telegraf on 
20 June 2001, the military authorities were informed by the police 
that 168 bodies had been found in the Glogovac area, and 146 in the 
Doshevc woods during the NATO bombing.  The report notes that 
Yugoslav Army units were not involved in the sanitation of these 
areas.  Another 66 bodies were found in ?ikatovo village and were 
buried, on which the Yugoslav Army has a report on record.
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