[A-PAL] A-PAL newsletter 7/30/01

[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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