[A-PAL] Newsletter-Dubrava 2

[Alice Mead]

A-PAL ALBNAIAN PRISONER ADVOCACY
MAY 23, 2001
                  2nd Year Anniversary of the Dubrava Massacre

   .RELEASE THE REMAINING 139 ALBANIAN PRISONERS STILL HELD IN  SERBIA
The Serb Supreme Court must release the prisoners to comply with UN 
law, the Helsinki Accords, the Geneva Conventions, EU demands, the 
Yugoslav Constitution, UN 1244, and the Council of Europe's pact of 
protection of human rights. President Kostunica has not fulfilled his 
many promises to internationals to release the prisoners kept as 
hostages, tortured and deprived of liberty under the Milosevic 
regime. Now the Serbian Supreme Court justices must demonstrate their 
independence from the brutal political agendas of Milosevic and 
release these 139 prisoners or they will continue to violate the laws 
listed above.
   -On June 29th, the FRY meeting of donors will be held in Brussels.-
**We urge all countries who are co-signers of these laws to withhold 
funding to the former Yugoslavia until the prisoners are released.**

                    One Prisoner's story: Nait Hasani

Nait Hasani age 37, is a political prisoner, one of the Dubrava 
massacre survivors still being held in Belgrade Central Prison, two 
years after the end of the war. He was arrested on January 28, 1997. 
Nait was kidnapped off the street and for one month nobody knew 
anything about his fate. After two days he was sent to Prishtina 
Hospital in an unconscious state with heavy wounds on his head, 
stomach and breast (he had two bones broken). In the hospital he was 
registered as "person N.N." From the hospital, he was then taken 
still in an unconscious state and after one month it was understood 
that he was kept in a secret base of Serbian State Security in 
Hajvali. During all this time he was suffered extreme inhumane 
torture. After six months he was charged, and after nine months his 
trial started, which was one month and twenty days long.

Nait was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. During all this time in 
prison, authorities  physically and psychologically mistreated him, 
but he stayed stoic and unbending.

On June 16, 1998, he was transferred to the notorious prison of 
Sremska Mitrovica in northern Serbia. Here, he was kept in isolation 
for a long time and during the entire time, he was under extreme 
physical and psychological torture. During the time, the director of 
this prison brought to visit him delegations, among them was the 
criminal Arkan.

After ten moths, he together with other Albanians was transferred to 
Nish prison where a guards' cordon waited to torture them as they 
arrived. When one prisoner was hit so hard he became unconscious and 
guards continued to hit him, Nait managed to cover the hurt prisoner 
and to carry him to his prison room, while the guards continued to 
spend their chauvinist anger by hitting Nait's body. After three days 
(April 26-29,1999) spent in Nish prison he together with all other 
Albanian prisoners was transferred to Dubrava prison in Istok, 
Kosova. Nait was certain that this gathering of all Albanian 
prisoners in Dubrava prison was planned for a tragic end, and that is 
what happened there.


During the bombardment of Dubrava prison by NATO planes 23 prisoners 
were killed and many others were injured, among them was Nait. On May 
22 and 23, 1999,guards, police, soldiers, and paramilitary and also 
Serb prisoners shot and killed more than 150 Albanian prisoners and 
injured many others (more than 200). Nait was badly injured in his 
breast, but again, he never stopped organizing and giving first aid 
to other injured prisoners. During those horrible days, when Serb 
guards and criminals in cold blood killed Albanians, prisoners, and 
especially wounded prisoners, looked for their strongest support in 
Nait, who with his will and moral courage managed to bring some 
optimism to them.


      On May 24, Nait was transferred in Lipjan prison in Kosova 
without medical treatment for his serious injuries. After 17 days, on 
June 10, 1999, the day after the war ended, he was sent to Pozarevac 
prison in Serbia, still suffering from his grave wounds from Dubrava 
massacre. In Pozharevac, he was beaten again until he lost his 
consciousness. After four months spent in this prison, he was 
transferred again to Sremska Mitrovica prison in northern Serbia, 
where he stayed for nearly two years until the rebellion of Serb 
prisoners. He was without medical care for his wounds from Dubrava. 
According to international law, he should have been released 
immediately following the end of the hostilities.

After the Serb prison riots, which the Albanian prisoners understood 
but did not join in, he was transferred to Belgrade Central Prison, 
the prison where conditions for Albanians are very bad, with reports 
of not even enough air to breathe. But Nait even with piece of a NATO 
bomb still in his breast, remains stoic and brave as do Albin Kurti 
and many others. After two years, he and 140 other political 
prisoners from the Milosevic regime remain illegally deprived of 
their human rights and freedoms, simply because they are Albanian and 
did not silently submit to brutality and repression.

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