[A-PAL] A-PAL Newsletter 7/30/01 plus Dubrava massacre photo

[Alice Mead]

A-PAL (ALBANIAN PRISONER ADVOCACY)--Urgent Update
JULY 30, 2001
___________________________________________________________________
234 Albanian Prisoners remain in Serb prisons
110 are political cases, 124 criminal
Despite promises for release, 90 Albanian political cases will NOT be 
reviewed or receive amnesty. Only 20 will be reviewed.
_______________________________________________________________
Death toll of Albanian prisoners (1999-2001): 138 dead so far.
_________________________________________________________

                    A-PAL STATEMENT--URGENT
The political will to release the final 234 Albanian prisoners seems 
to have evaporated on all sides. Now that most are out (out of 2,300 
prisoners, 1,900 were released by bribes paid by family members and 
only about 300 were released under the amnesty law or the review 
process), there is no initiative to send the last group home. The 
long-promised "judicial review" by the Serb Supreme Court  is over. 
The excuse for inaction on the Serb side is that they don't have 
enough money to hire new judges, but in fact release was denied to 
nearly all the remaining cases.

This is unacceptable. A-PAL demands an immediate high-level meeting 
of all parties involved (Serb officials, UNMIK, UNHCHR, HLC, HRW, 
ICRC, US leaders, EU, and KFOR) to develop a timeline for the 
transfer of ALL Kosovar citizens now imprisoned in Serbia to Kosova 
where their cases will be reviewed, as guaranteed in UN1244, the 
Geneva Conventions, the Yugoslav Constitution, and OSCE. UN1244 which 
confirms the language of Rambouillet--"All abducted persons shall be 
released and transfered. Each side shall not prosecute anyone for 
crimes related to the conflict in Kosovo unless it is a violation of 
humanitarian law. Each side shall grant a general amnesty for all 
persons convicted of committing a politically motivated crime 
relating to the conflict in Kosovo."
Furthermore, "Defendents are entitled to have his trial tranfered to 
a Kosovo court that he designates. In criminal cases, all judicial 
members will be from a nationality of their choice."

It is vitally important to recall who in fact is trying these cases 
against the Albanians. At the end of the war, Milosevic tranfered all 
the Serb judges in Kosovo, claiming that he had transfered the court 
of Prishtina, Peje, Prizren, Gjlane, etc, so that judges in Serbia 
now had jurisdiction over Kosovar Albanians who were citizens of 
Kosovo--by order of Milosevic. These were the same judges and justice 
system who oversaw the torture, starvation, and forced confessions, 
and even massacre of Albanian prisoners only weeks before. The photo 
shows a guard from Dubrava who now works in Pozharevac Prison.

The Republic of Serbia has no legal right to perpetuate this false 
system of justice, created solely for the ongoing ethnic persecution 
of the Albanian prisoners. These courts, these artrificially created 
reviews, are simply hold-overs of Milosevic's corrupt use of the 
judicial system of Yugoslavia to further his political and financial 
ends. Nowhere in the FRY Constitution does it say that the courts of 
Kosovo will operate in Serbia for an indefinite period of time. And 
nowhere in any law of any land belonging to the UN, EU, and OSCE does 
it state that martial law can abridge international human rights. 
Ever.

Instead, following conflict-- All persons have a right to return 
home. It isn't the Hague tribunal that is a false court. It is the 
courts of Kosovo now in Serbia still operating by Milosevic's decree. 
No wonder the judges from these courts have a habit of disappearing.


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