[A-PAL] A-PAL 2 yr. prisoner report

[Alice Mead]

>
>                    A-PAL REPORT-2ND ANNIVERSARY
>(ALBANIAN PRISONER ADVOCACY LEAGUE)
>JUNE 1, 2001
>Alice Mead-Coordinator
>Amead at maine.rr.com
>
>
>             Status of Albanian Prisoners-from June 2000-June 2001
>Bribes, unfair trials, inhumane conditions, a narrowly focused 
>amnesty law, prison riots, lengthy sentences, forced confessions, 
>and empty promises-it's been a year of ups and downs for the 
>Albanian prisoners in Serbian prisons.
>
>From June, 2000: "Serbs hold hundreds of Kosovo hostages," is the 
>title of an article by Vesna Zimonjic in Belgrade. "A year after 
>NATO began its bombing campaign to "liberate" Kosovo,  more than 
>1,400 ethnic Albanians remain incarcerated in prisons in Serbia, 
>many of them facing trumped-up charges of "terrorism."Š.The judges 
>are, as a rule, Serbs who once worked in Kosovo but left when their 
>administration did in June."
>
>FROM JUNE 2000 TO JUNE 2001, much progress on this issue has been 
>made. Due to widespread political pressure from foreign governments 
>and international human rights organizations, many cases have been 
>dismissed. There are now 235 Albanian prisoners still in Serbia 
>(down from approximately 2,300 who were originally detained.) 120 of 
>these cases are criminal cases, but the other 135 cases are 
>political prisoners, arrested under the Milosevic regime.
>About 1,650 of the detainees returned to Kosova when their families 
>paid large bribes to Serbian lawyers and justice officials. In 
>February, 2001, the Serb and Yugoslav Parliaments passed an amnesty 
>law which released 30,000 Serbs and 230 Albanians. At the end of 
>April, 2001, 143 people from Gjakova were released in a group. The 
>rest, according to Serbian justice officials, would be subject to a 
>speedy judicial review and released. Nearly four months have now 
>passed. This hasn't happened.
>
>It is important to note that throughout the entire process of 
>arrests, torture, detentions, and trials, advocacy efforts for the 
>Albanians have been greatly assisted by Serbian human rights groups, 
>the Humanitarian Law Center, the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, 
>also Helsinki Human Rights Watch in New York and Belgrade, the 
>Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the Coalition for International 
>Justice, the International Crisis Group, the ICRC, UNHCHR, Grupa 
>484, PEN International, Amnesty International, Kosova/Ireland 
>Solidarity, Euro A-PAL and Kosova Reconstruction, Swedish Kosov@ 
>Union. We have welcomed initiatives from the UNMIK Kosova Transition 
>Council, UN Security Council, FRY UN Human Rights Commissioner Juri 
>Dinstbir, the US Senate, Representative Eliot Engel, the National 
>Albanian American Council, the US CSCE Committee, and the Green 
>Party of the European Parliament, especially Bart Staes.
>Nevertheless, the Serbian Supreme Court still demonstrates that it 
>can and will act outside international norms and even the laws of 
>its own constitution as is evidenced most recently by the Mazreku 
>trial (now up for appeal) and the refusal to release the last 135 
>Albanian political prisoners and to transfer the criminal cases to 
>Kosova justice system, in compliance with UN1244 and the Rambouillet 
>Accords.
>
>
>                     A-PAL RECOMMENDATIONS
>
>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 135 prisoners or they will continue to violate 
>international law and the Yugoslav Constitution.
>
>   -On June 29th, the FRY meeting of donors will be held in Brussels.-
>
>1.**We urge all countries who are co-signers of these laws to 
>withhold funding to the former Yugoslavia until the prisoners are 
>released.**
>
>2.** YUGOSLAVIA has now reentered the UN and OSCE. We urge those 
>organizations to develop real consequences for Serbia's failure to 
>release the Albanian prisoners in a timely fashion. Past experience 
>has shown that without immediate consequences, compliance will not 
>take place.
>
>3.** The Council of Europe now has an office in Belgrade and 
>Yugoslavia has indicated an interest in becoming a member. The 
>Council of Europe needs to make the release of prisoners a priority 
>with real consequences if their release continues to be delayed.
>
>4.**Embassy diplomats, MEP staff, US legislative staff, Human Rights 
>Watch, and Amnesty International need to take a much more public 
>role in visiting the remaining prisoners, observing their appeals, 
>and documenting on-going violations of basic humanitarian 
>rights-such as adequate food, freedom from harassment and torture, 
>adequate family visits,medical care, humanitarian releases (all of 
>which have been denied so far). Serb humanitarian cases are equally 
>neglected.
>
>5.**The justices of the Serbian Supreme Court, nearly all of whom 
>are holdovers from the Milosevic regime, need the closest level of 
>outside monitoring. For example, the lack of international outcry 
>over the recent Mazreku case and lack of demands for their release 
>are a disgrace. High-visiblity cases, such as the Gjakova 143 or Dr. 
>Flora Brovina, receive one level of attention. The Mazrekus, and 
>hundreds like them, go ignored.
>
>6. That OSCE appoint an independent investigation to report on the 
>ongoing situation of the Albanian prisoners, to document cooperation 
>and lack of regard for international norms and the Helsinki Accords. 
>To demand appropriate action by the Serb Supreme Court in its 
>"review" of cases.
>____________________________________________________________________
>  LUAN AND BEKIM MAZREKU now up for APPEAL!
>      APRIL 18, 2001__
>  LUAN AND BEKIM MAZREKU WERE SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS FOR ALLEGED 
>CRIMES IN ORAHOVEC/RAHOVEC THAT OCCURRED TWO WEEKS AFTER THEY WERE 
>ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED! THE ONLY EVIDENCE USED IN THIS YEAR-LONG 
>TRIAL WERE CONFESSIONS OBTAINED BY TORTURE.
>
>         The Mazreku case is an outrageous example of the type of 
>abuse and injustice the Serb Ministry of Justice has long 
>practiced-and indeed continues to practice-- in trials of ethnic 
>Albanians. They were accused of murdering an Albanian in July 1998, 
>who turns out to have committed suicide in 1981. They were also 
>accused of raping and murdering a group of Serbs, when in fact they 
>had already been arrested and were in jail when the alleged act of 
>terrorism took place. They were repeatedly and severely tortured to 
>obtain confessions. They were held for over 18 months before their 
>trial. Their records and court documents are missing. The 
>investigating judge was Danica Marinovic, the same judge who oversaw 
>the torture camp at Lipjan Prison and the Dubrava Massacre. They 
>were guilty even before the crime occurred -held as scapegoats 
>simply because of their ethnicity. They are now being held in Nis 
>Prison, waiting for their appeal before the Serb Supreme Court.
>
>From the trial analysis by HLC
>Here is evidence entered in their defense. This evidence was denied 
>in the first two attempts at a trial.
>6. To admit as evidence the 2 July 1998 custody order issued by the 
>Priština Police Department for Bekim and Luan Mazreku and the 2 July 
>1998 certificate on their admission to jail, in view of the fact 
>that they were charged with a criminal offense committed after the 
>date of their arrest, i.e. in the 17-22 July 1998 period.
>
>________________________________________________________
>  EXCERPT FROM THE HLC TRIAL ANALYSIS:  CONVICTED WITHOUT EVIDENCE
>  Legal Analysis of the Mazreku Trial-April 18, 2001
>
>The Humanitarian Law Center/Belgrade points out that the District 
>Court in Niš sentenced two Kosovo Albanians to long terms of 
>imprisonment in spite of the lack of any incriminating evidence 
>against them.  After a trial which lasted a year, the five-man panel 
>of the District Court on 18 April 2001 unanimously found Luan and 
>Bekim Mazreku from Mališevo guilty of terrorism under Article 125 of 
>the federal Criminal Code (CC) and, pursuant to Article 139 (2) of 
>the CC, sentenced them both to 20 years, the maximum term envisaged 
>by law.  The Court ordered the Mazrekus to be remanded to custody 
>until the sentence became finalŠ
>___________________________________________
>One Prisoner's story: Nait Hasani
>May, 2001
>
>Nait Hasani age 37, is a political prisoner, one of the Dubrava 
>massacre survivors now 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. 
>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 
>hit 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.
>___________________________________________________________
>
>Quote: Rachel Denber/Human Rights Watch, October 11, 2000
>
>"Releasing Filipovic is a good step, but Kostunica can and should do 
>much more," said Rachel Denber, Acting Executive Director of Human 
>Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "Hundreds of Kosovo 
>Albanians are serving unjust sentences in Serbia. Releasing them 
>would show conclusively that the new government isfundamentally 
>different from that of Slobodan Milosevic. It would show a 
>dedication to justice and ethnic tolerance."
>
>*******************************************************
>
>  BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON ARRESTS, DETENTIONS AND TRIALS BASED ON 
>INTERVIEWS WITH RELEASED PRISONERS
>Conducted by Shukrie Rexha-Association of Political Prisoners, Prishtina
>And Alice Mead, A-PAL coordinator
>June, 2000
>
>  With hundreds of prisoners now released from Serb prisons, the 
>Association of Political Prisoners has been able to begin to 
>document the circumstances of the round-ups, arrests, 
>interrogations, detentions, trials, and ransoms. From this 
>information, we believe that the round-up, near starvation, torture, 
>abuse, and deprivation of liberty suffered by these people, aged 13 
>to 73, warrants an in-depth investigation, independent of ICRC and 
>UNHCHR, to determine violations not only of the Geneva Conventions, 
>but for many other humanitarian law violations, violations of the 
>Yugoslav Constitution, and of the Security Council Charter for 
>Kosova.
>
>ARRESTS:
>
>In most cases, no normal law enforcement procedures were used in the 
>round-ups and arrests of the ethnic Albanians, most of which took 
>place during the 11 week bombing campaign in spring, 1999. The men 
>were arrested based solely on their ethnicity and gender. 
>Individuals were taken from their homes or off the streets. They 
>were not charged or taken before a judge for a hearing. They had no 
>access to a lawyer, doctor, or family members. Instead, they were 
>handcuffed and taken by force to the nearest police station. There 
>for the first three to five days, they were extensively tortured.
>
>INTERROGATIONS:
>
>Usually the detainee would first be put in an extremely over-crowded 
>cell, without food or water, unable to sit or lie down. One prisoner 
>reported 300 people were in the basement of the Prishtina police 
>station the day he was brought in for interrogation. They were then 
>taken to "offices" for interrogation by inspectors. There they were 
>routinely, savagely tortured for hours, told to confess to 
>violations of laws 125 and/or 136--acts of terrorism or acts against 
>the state of Yugoslavia. For those who refused to sign, they were 
>threatened with execution. One old man had a bomb placed in his 
>mouth several times. The police stuffed newspapers in their mouths 
>to stop the sound of the screams. At other times, a younger relative 
>might be brought in and the prisoner forced to watch the torture of 
>a son or younger brother.
>Methods of torture that were widespread include-- kicking, clubbing, 
>electric shock, beating with gun barrels and stocks, being hung 
>upside down and kicked, being forced to eat dirt. If the prisoner 
>refused to sign a confession, the guards and interrogators told him 
>that he was guilty anyway because the "Albanians called for NATO in 
>their demonstrations." So they were held guilty collectively, held 
>responsible simply as Albanians for the NATO bombing campaign.
>
>Round-ups of prisoners seem to co-incide with NATO bombing raids. 
>For example, when NATO finally bombed downtown Belgrade during a 
>five day period in early May, the police rounded up  over a thousand 
>men from Gjakova and Peje, many hundreds of whom have completely 
>disappeared.
>
>HUMANITARIAN LAW--RIGHTS AND STANDARDS
>At this time, the director of both Prishtina Prison and Lipjan 
>Prison was Lubomir Cimburovic. He was transferred following the war 
>and is now at both Sremska Mitrovica Prison in northern Serbia and 
>Pozharevac Prison near Belgrade. The investigating judge for the 
>Prishtina district was Danica Marinkovic, now a judge in Nis. 
>Prisoners state that the prison directors knew what was going on in 
>Lipjan but did nothing to stop it, a clear violation of 
>international code of conduct law, ICCPR, currently in effect in 
>Yugoslavia. This law is also in effect for the NATO allies and the 
>UN Security Council. All officials of these organizations are aware 
>of what is going on in these prisons.
>During investigations, even those conducted during armed conflict, 
>this law prohibits the use of torture, or inhuman and degrading 
>treatment. It says no one can be forced to testify against himself. 
>Everyone has the right to a fair trial. Everyone is innocent until 
>proven guilty, arbitrary and intrusive investigatory activities are 
>prohibited.
>During arrest, the law states anyone arrested must be informed at 
>that time the reason for his arrest and the charges against him. He 
>shall be brought promptly to a judicial authority, Detention pending 
>trial is the exception. A detailed record of every arrest made shall 
>include: the reason for the arrest, the time of transfer to a jail, 
>the place of custody, the time of judicial appearance, the identity 
>of the officers involved, details of the interrogation.
>
>The Association of Political Prisoners demands that these records be 
>given to the Ministers of Justice in Kosova. International observers 
>such as UNHCHR and human rights groups have written reports on these 
>sham trials. They should be collected and perpetrators of these 
>injustices prosecuted. Prison directors stated in mid-June at 
>Pozharevac, for example,  that out of the 600 prisoners who arrived, 
>over 530 did not have court documents of any kind. This included 
>Halil Matoshi and Albin Kurti. Court evidence in the case of Dr. 
>Brovina included a forced confession and a bag of pink and yellow 
>yarn. Based on that evidence, she was sentenced to 12  years for 
>acts of terrorism. Kurti was sentenced to 15 years based on no 
>evidence at all, and Matoshi's family paid a large amount of ransom 
>money to obtain his release.
>       Other prisoners have been convicted for acts of terrorism even 
>when Serb police state that the individual is innocent. Some were 
>already in prison when the Serb they allegedly killed actually died. 
>an old man who voluntarily went to the Prishtina prison when some 
>students were arrested, solely to accompany and reassure them. When 
>he arrived, the police informed him he was a KLA commander who had 
>killed four Serbs. To obtain a confession, they placed a bomb in his 
>mouth. One elderly man was sentenced to 20 years, then 
>re-interrogated, his family paid a bribe of 20,000 DM paid and he 
>was released. We want to see these records. Why has ICRC been 
>refused prison documents when prisoners are released? Why were no 
>court documents brought when the detainees were transferred to 
>Serbia?
>
>Furthermore, humanitarian law states that the family of the arrested 
>person shall be notified promptly of his arrest and the place of 
>detention. The prisoners report being held in houses, garages, 
>basements, and barns before being taken to Lipjan. Once in Serbia, 
>their families had no idea where they were. Even now, when they are 
>transferred, the families are not notified, nor is ICRC. Detainees 
>have the right to contact the outside world. They shall be kept in 
>humane conditions with adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, 
>medical care, exercise and personal hygiene. Nearly all prisoners 
>have been deprived of humane conditions for  nearly one year. There 
>are two more infants serving time in Pozharevac.  There are amputees 
>with no legs, old men with terminal tuberculosis, men with shrapnel 
>in their spines, hundreds of men pulled off refugee lines outside 
>Gjakova.
>
>HUMANITARIAN LAW APPLIES IN ALL SITUATIONS OF ARMED CONFLICT. 
>Persons suffering the effects or injuries of war must be protected 
>and cared for without discrimination. Acts prohibited include: 
>murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation, insults of 
>personal dignity, hostage-taking, collective punishment, cruel and 
>degrading treatment. Reprisals against the wounded, sick, doctors, 
>prisoners of war, and civilians are prohibited. Surely the survivors 
>of the Dubrava massacre, a war crime that is going to be prosecuted 
>by the Hague, deserve to be released from Serb prisons!
>
>
>   CONDITIONS IN LIPJAN/DUBRAVA  MARCH 24-JUNE 9, 1999
>
>At the entrance to Lipjan Prison, prisoners were greeted with the 
>infamous corridor of guards armed with clubs, usually about twenty 
>to thirty men. The prisoners had to pass through the corridor, 
>sustaining up to fifty wounds, their whole bodies black and blue. 
>They were given hardly any bread at all and dirty water to drink. 
>The cells were overcrowded, with up to 54 men in one cell, packed in 
>so tightly they could hardly move. One boy, age 14, was beaten on 
>the head with a Kalishnikov because he sat down. He now has 
>permanent head trauma.
>Around 350 men were put in the Lipjan gym, along with the Dubrava 
>massacre survivors. The narratives about the gym resemble 
>descriptions of Bosnian death camps. There was no bathroom or place 
>to sleep. They ate only one small 1" cube of bread per day and were 
>beaten randomly and often. If you spoke, you were beaten. To get 
>your piece of bread, you had to say "Long live Serbia." Men in the 
>gym report that everyone had been extensively tortured. They could 
>hear the screams of men being tortured in the hallways near the gym. 
>The guards said that they would massacre everyone, as they had in 
>Dubrava on May 21 and 22.
>
>
>DUBRAVA MILITARY CENTER:
>
>As separate articles and reports have shown, the massacre at Dubrava 
>was pre-arranged. Albanian prisoners arrested from 1998 and before 
>were bused there from prisons in both Serbia and Kosova. It was a 
>military center, and everyone seemed to know that it would be bombed 
>by NATO. It was bombed on May 19 and 21. But not all the prisoners 
>died in the bombing. So the guards opened fire with machine guns and 
>staged a massacre. According to one released prisoner, he was 
>wounded from the bombing in the neck and head. He was shot in the 
>elbow during the massacre. Then he was loaded onto a truck and taken 
>to Lipjan, A doctor cleaned his wounds once. Then he was tortured 
>very much.
>He states that the conditions in Lipjan were very bad. He was placed 
>in the gym with 350 others. He became "disassociated" from the lack 
>of food and water, his wounds, the hours of torture, and the 
>emotional trauma of the Dubrava massacre.
>
>      TRANSPORT TO SERBIA--June 10, 1999
>
>Many of the prisoners report that they didn't know that the war had 
>ended. On the night of June 9th, they heard a lot of shooting as the 
>guards shot their rifles in the air. The guards said, "Tomorrow we 
>will kill you. There will be a massacre here." The prisoners were 
>handcuffed and pushed into over-crowded cells in groups of 40 or 50, 
>where they stood all night without food or water. They have scars 
>from where the handcuffs cut into their wrists.
>
>In the morning the prisoners were taken outside and beaten again by 
>the corridor of guards with clubs. Then they got on the many buses. 
>On the bus, they were beaten constantly. They had to keep their 
>heads down and not look up. There was no food or water that day and 
>it was very hot. Everyone thought they were going to be taken to 
>Serbia and executed. The younger prisoners cried a lot. When they 
>got to Nis prison, the crowd threw rocks and vegetables at the bus. 
>The prisoners were placed in eight different prisons. All report 
>this day as the worst day in their lives. They reached Sremska 
>Mitrovica around 11:30 p.m.
>
>SERB PRISONS--NIS, POZHREVAC, SREMSKA MITROVICA,
>PRISON CONDITIONS for Albanians:
>
>Compared to conditions in Lipjan and Dubrava, the conditions in 
>Serbia were better, although Sremska Mitrovica, which is run by a 
>radical nationalist, is the worst. The ICRC has not visited Sr. 
>Mitrovica since August, 1999, because the director refuses to let 
>them meet prisoners alone. But families in Kosova are gravely 
>concerned that the Albanian prisoners there may starve to death.
>Released prisoners say they were given two 1"cubes of bread  per day 
>and water. They say without packages from home, they would die 
>there. They had only one blanket and slept on 1/4 inch thick mats. 
>They said they were very cold and hungry all winter. Frequently 
>prisoners were put in isolation. Many Dubrava survivors are in Sr. 
>Mitrovica and have had disfiguring amputations of feet, legs, etc. 
>Requests to see a doctor are met with "therapy." Standard therapy 
>for infractions is being hit 80 times with a club. They are kept in 
>isolation, without newspapers, books or radios. They have no contact 
>with family. The officials from Lipjan came and re-interrogated some 
>prisoners.
>
>One prisoner reports, "There were 70 people in my room. It was very 
>cold. The ICRC came once in the summer, but they didn't even give us 
>toothbrushes or soap or newspapers and they never came back. No one 
>in that prison did anything. At least ninety per cent are there for 
>no reason. But I am worried about a young man, Bekim Mazreku. He is 
>from Malishevo, arrested in 1998, and accused of massacring Serbs. 
>They say he is a war criminal. They beat him constantly. But he says 
>he is innocent. He is hoping someone will come and take him to The 
>Hague so he can prove his innocence. Now he has been in isolation 
>for five months. It is terrible. I saw the prison director say to 
>some journalists, "I am afraid of the Hague or I would kill this guy 
>myself." I don't think he can survive much longer.
>
>Conditions in Pozharevac and Nis are a little better. There you get 
>one small loaf of bread per day and water. You can walk outside for 
>one hour and you can read. The guards refer to all prisoners as KLA 
>or terrorists who kill Serbs.
>
>RELEASES/TRIALS:
>What happens to these prisoners next varies somewhat. Most are 
>released when a lawyer contacts the family and asks for between 
>8,000 DM and 45,000 DM for more prestigious prisoners. These 
>negotiations are worked out in the no-man's land between Kosova and 
>Serbia or simply by phone. Some prisoners then have hasty trials 
>where they are convicted and sentenced to the amount of time already 
>served. Some are simply dismissed.
>Here are some examples:
>
>1. In early January 2000, a Serb lawyer called the prisoner's 
>family, and asked for 12,000 DM. On January 28, he was released, but 
>he was given no prison documents, even though ICRC went back and 
>tried to get them. The ICRC brought jeeps and drove him home with 25 
>others released from Pozharevac.
>
>  2. On January 27, a guy named Misha came and said, "you can go home 
>in ten days because your family paid 8,000 DM." When the prisoner 
>left, he had no prison documents, although ICRC tried to get them.
>
>3. On November 17, twenty minor boys were taken to isolation cells 
>in Pozharevac. They thought they were going to be executed and cried 
>a lot. Another day the guards gave them clothes to put on. They were 
>taken to a bus. They thought the bus would drive them someplace 
>where they would be killed. They got to the border. The guards 
>insulted them and told them to get off and walk. They thought they 
>would be shot in the back. Then they saw a bus from ICRC and they 
>went home.
>
>4. On December 13, he was transfered from Sremska Mitrovica to Nis 
>for trial because the Prishtina judge is there. On February 7 and 
>8th was his trial. He had a lawyer named Zarko Gajic. His family 
>paid 15,000 DM to the lawyer. The whole group of eight was released 
>without charges. The lawyer drove him to the border and he went home.
>
>TRIALS
>The cases that go to trial result in convictions varying from one 
>year to twenty years. The Brovina case has been well analyzed by the 
>LCHR in New York. She was interrogated 18 times for a total of 226 
>hours of interrogation, despite being in pain from a heart 
>condition. During this time, she signed a confession  but was not 
>allowed to read it. Using this statement to convict a prisoner is a 
>violation of Article 14 of ICCPR, which describe the minimum 
>guarantees of human rights. UNHCHR legal observer Nicola Barovic 
>said the prosecution did not provide enough evidence to support its 
>charge of terrorism and that Dr. Brovina was involved with KLA.
>
>Another released prisoner (age 65) states: He was interrogated for 
>many hours. They beat him a lot on his body but not his face or 
>head. They said, "What did you do for KLA?" Then he was taken to 
>Lipjan. He was beaten at the entrance. Men in his cell were tortured 
>very badly to extract confessions. Asllan Sopi age 21 and NM were 
>severely tortured. AQ was taken for questioning and never seen 
>again. SV was hung upside down from the ceiling, while the guards 
>played a game of kicking him. They broke all his teeth and jaw.  The 
>elderly man did not sign a confession at Lipjan. He was tried in a 
>store in Prishtina and sentenced to 20 years. He had no lawyer, 
>there was no evidence, and he doesn't know what the charges were. 
>The court was run by a man named Lukic. This decision was later 
>overturned for 45,000 DM paid by his family. He was released.
>
>FG was arrested at home while drinking coffee. At the Prishtina 
>station they gave him the paraffin test. They said, "How many police 
>did you shoot? Where is your weapon?" He said he had no gun. They 
>beat him with a baseball bat. They said, "Are you in KLA?" He said, 
>"No." They gave him a paper that said he had violated laws 125 and 
>136. They said, "Sign this." He signed it the first day. When they 
>beat him with the bat, they stuffed newspapers in his mouth to 
>muffle the screams." He was interrogated by secret police inspectors 
>at Lipjan next. They said, "Are you in KLA?" He said no. They said 
>he had to confess or they would kill him. Then they beat him, 
>saying, "Where is your Clinton now? Why did you ask for NATO in your 
>protests? Why didn't you go to Albania? This is Serbia. Why do you 
>have an Albanian name? We have to change your name. If you don't 
>confess to these things, you are a dead man." That was on June 6th. 
>He was sent to Sr. Mitrovica and never tried.
>
>Serb Ministry of Justice claims that these are Serb citizens and 
>therefore must be "tried" within Serbia are meaningless. They claim 
>the prisoners were taken into Serbia for greater security, for their 
>own good, to be "in a safer place." In fact, the trials are a sham, 
>conducted solely for the purpose of collecting ransom money for 
>lawyers, go-betweens, and judges. Ministry of Justice officials, 
>judges and wardens are all involved in this large-scale abuse of the 
>law and on-going war crime.
>
>The UN Security Council has allowed this situation to continue for a 
>year, ignoring the pleas of desperate and anxious Albanian family 
>members, who want their loved ones freed from torture, starvation, 
>and abuse and allowed to come home. This is an unjust peace.
>
>These criminal abuses that have been inflicted on this group of 
>detainees is ethnically based discrimination and  warrants a full 
>investigation both by the ICTY, the Security Council, and 
>independent human rights researchers and analysts. The prisoners are 
>persecuted and deprived of their liberty solely because they are 
>Albanian, and therefore are being held collectively responsible for 
>the NATO bombing. The NATO allies have let this deplorable situation 
>continue without comment. The refusal of the co-signers of the 
>Geneva Conventions to take public steps to secure the release of 
>these prisoners is inexcusable. It leads one to think--what if the 
>Kosovars were torturing and selling Serb citizens for thousands of 
>Deutschmarks? Or if Germans were ransoming 1,900 Jews? Instead, 
>implications are that the Albanians are the ones causing this 
>problem because they won't exchange Serb bodies (as yet in 
>unidentified locations) and/or prisoners (again in unknown locations 
>and of unknown identity).
>
>As the careful transfer of judges from Prishtina and other courts to 
>Serb courts shows, this situation of transporting the Albanians the 
>day after the war was planned by the Ministry of Justice. They know 
>full well what was and is going on, that the persecution is 
>ethnically based, and the trial system for these individuals is 
>entirely corrupt. This needs to  be documented and the perpetrators 
>of this abuse need to be prosecuted.
>The Serb Ministers of Justice, the ICRC, and UNHCHR leaders are 
>bound by laws that are in effect in Yugoslavia, both now and 
>throughout the bombing.
>*These laws protect and guarantee their immediate release.
>*The laws are not conditional, i.e. enforceable only when there is a 
>trade of prisoners,
>_ The laws are not optional, i.e. since their release terms were not 
>stated in the Kumanovo Agreement, then these individuals have lost 
>all rights to fair, humane treatment and to release following the 
>cessation of hostilities.
>_ As stated earlier, humanitarian law is in effect during armed 
>conflict. These laws give victims the following rights, which have 
>not been explained at all to the released prisoners by an UN 
>organization:
>_ The right to seek redress, access to justice, the right to present 
>their views and feeling, the right to receive all necessary legal, 
>medical, and social assistance available.
>_ Governments should make restitution where public officials are at fault.
>_ Financial compensation should be made available from the offender 
>or from the state.
>Regarding the Serb officials involved in this, the law states:
>  *Law enforcement officials shall respect and protect human dignity 
>and the human rights of all persons.
>*Officials who believe that a violation has occurred shall report this matter
>*Obedience to superior orders shall not be a defense for violations 
>committed by police
>Furthermore, the victims deserve:
>   *A prompt, impartial, and thorough investigation into these abuses
>_ An investigation that seeks to identify witnesses, discover cause, 
>manner, location, and time of the violation, and to identify and 
>apprehend the perpetrators
>_ Provisions shall be made for the processing of all complaints 
>against law enforcement officials by members of the public and the 
>existence of these provisions shall be publicized
>
>__________________________________________________
>     November 7, 2000:   Prison Riots in Serbia
>
>Not only have the prisoners survived bombings, beatings, and unfair 
>trials, but in November of 2000, riots broke out in the prisons all 
>over Serbia. It is only through the restraint of the Serb 
>criminals-who feel the Albanians receive far worse treatment than 
>they do-that many of them, especially in Nis Prison survived.
>
>Date: Tue, Nov 7, 2000, 8:47 AM
>
>[ ... ] FROM ASSOCIATION FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS, PRISHTINA
>      The following is a letter from the Association of Political
>Prisoners signed by Shukrie Rexha  ...
>
>According to information from the prison of Nis, the situation in this
>prison is very much alarming.
>      Last night after 20:00, about 1000 Serbian prisoners broke their
>cell doors and walked out of them. They took metal  bars, wooden
>sticks and knives in their hands.
>      After they forcefully expelled the prison personnel, Serbian
>prisoners took control over the prison. They put on the remaining
>uniforms of prison personnel and everything is developing now in
>accordance with their order. They set on fire several objects of Nis
>prison. Due to this huge fire the power was cut off.
>      In one of the buildings on the second and third floor, there are
>about 320 Albanian prisoners.
>      The Serbian prisoners with this form of rebellion are requesting
>amnesty. After they walked out of their prison cells the Serbian
>prisoners requested from the Albanian prisoners to join them.
>      The Albanian prisoners replied that they supported their request
>for amnesty, but due to security reasons they said "we've decided not to
>walk out of the cells". The Serbian prisoners initially asked for
>cigarettes from the Albanian prisoners. Subsequently, at around 04:00
>AM, another group of Serbian imprisoned criminals with knives in their
>hands, and some of them with metallic bars and wooden sticks, wanted
>money from the Albanian prisoners and threatened them to execute them if
>they didn't hand over the money by a certain time.
>      Albanian prisoners in the prison of Nis are at the moment under the
>mercy of Serbian criminals!
>
>Shukrie Rexha
>APP Prishtinë
>7 November,
>_______________________________________________________________________
>http://www.freeb92.net/archive/e/index.phtml?Y=2000&M=11&D=07
>FreeB92  Last update: Nov 7, 2000 22:14 CET
>Federal Government to discuss prison amnesty
>22:14 BELGRADE, Tuesday - The Federal government has studied information
>about prison conditions and will soon discuss amnesty, Deputy Yugoslav
>Prime Minister Miroljub Labus told a press conference tonight.
>      The president of the Social Democratic union, Zarko Korac, said
>today that prisoners' demands for better conditions were justified.
>"There has been torture in prisons, said Korac," adding that the
>negotiators had been surprised by the solidarity shown among prisoners
>of different ethnic background.
>      "I don't know whether you know it, but the inmate delegation
>included three Albanians and a Croat. The Serbian prisoners said that
>they supported the Albanians while the Albanian prisoners, at the
>beginning of the negotiations, thanked the Serbian prisoners for
>allowing them to sleep in their dormitory after their own building was
>destroyed by fire," said Korac.
>______________________________________________
>Prison riot in Nis
>
>11:11 NIS, Tuesday - A riot broke out in a prison in Nis last night,
>ANEM reports. According to the prison manager, Mile Petrovic, prisoners
>started with hunger strike yesterday morning and turned into a riot
>during the evening, breaking and burning the inventory. Neither prison
>staff nor the prisoners were hurt. The prisoners entered the prison yard
>and requested amnesty not only for political prisoners, but for others
>as well, seeking to see the Co-ministers of Justice whose visit was
>announced for today.
>      One of the convicts, Vasilije Kujovic, was badly injured after he
>fell off a prison edifice and ended up with a brain damage, said Zoran
>Milenkovic, a neuropshychiatrist from Nis hospital.
>      A few hundred riot-breaking policemen entered the prison around
>midnight, but the prisoners managed to set fire to a part of the prison,
>Beta reported.
>      The riot in Nis broke out after the similar events took place in a
>prison in Sremska Mitrovica. There are around 1000 convicts in the
>prison in Nis, whereas the Albanian prisoners were not taking part in
>the riot.
>
>Prison riot in Zabela, Pozarevac
>
>10:53 POZAREVAC, Tuesday - The prisoners in Zabela, Pozarevac, refused
>the food yesterday saying they supported the convicts from Sremska
>Mitrovica. As Beta reports, they locked themselves in the fifth pavilion
>and requested to meet the Federal Minister of Justice, Momcilo Grubac
>and the Serbian Co-Ministers of Justice, Zoran Nikolic, Sead Spahovic
>and Dragan Subasic. The prisoners announced they would refuse food and
>rejected to perform any of the activities until their requests were
>fulfilled.
>
>Prison riot in Sremska Mitrovica
>
>10:24 SREMSKA MITROVICA, Tuesday - Albanian prisoners were evacuated on
>Monday night around 20.15 from the prison in Sremska Mitrovica where a
>riot broke out on Sunday night, Beta reported. They were evacuated in
>three buses, but their future accommodation was unknown. Unofficial
>reports claimed that the cells housing Albanians mainly burnt down in
>fire that broke out during the protest.
>      One convict, whose statement was aired on the state television,
>said that the demonstrators demanded dismissal of acting warden Pero
>Baros, holding him responsible "for many inmates being crippled in the
>prison". That convict also said that the prisoners demanded a
>thirty-percent amnesty for the returning inmates. He also accused the
>former warden Trivun Ivkovic of running the prison from the shadow.
>      All co-ministers of justice in the Serbian transitional government
>in the meantime visited the Mitrovica prison and stayed there until 10
>p.m. last night when they left the management building, Radio B92
>correspondent reports. Minister Sead Spahovic said that an agreement was
>reached with the prisoners' negotiations team. Our correspondent
>reported around 11 p.m. that the the radical group of rebels was still
>in protest and that they would persevere until their demands were met.
>One building on the prison grounds was still in flames around 11 p.m.
>
>________________________________________________
>OSCE Chairperson-In-Office
>HE Benita Ferrero-Waldner
>Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs
>Ballhausplatz
>Vienna, Austria
>
>O P E N  L E T T E R from the Director of Helsinki Human Rights Watch
>Vienna, 7. November 2000
>
>Dear Ms. Chairperson-In-Office,
>
>The General Assembly of the International Helsinki Federation for Human
>Rights (IHF), held its Annual Meeting in Prague from 2.-5. November, and
>agreed to ask the OSCE, in its negotiations about membership of the
>Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , to call upon its government to make the
>following steps:
>
>· The recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state, and the
>swift establishment of diplomatic relations, in order to improve the
>security situation in the region;
>· Restarting a political dialogue with civilian Kosovo Albanian leaders,
>and acknowledging Kosovos right to self-determination in a non-violent
>way
>· Creating a new dialogue with the Montenegrin people and its leaders
>about the future of the Montenegrin-Serbian relations, and recognizing
>Montenegros right to self-determination in a non-violent way;
>dismantling the 7th battalion of the VJ, stationed at the moment in
>Montenegro, as a first step in building confidence among the people of
>FRY;
>· To end the border disputes with the Republic of Macedonia, in order to
>improve the security situation in the region;;
>· Full cooperation with the work of the International Criminal Tribunal
>for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague;
>· Clarification of the support for the Dayton Agreement and the Kumanovo
>Agreement;
>· Planning emphasis on the problem of refugees in the Federation,
>including policies of granting the choice between citizenship and
>assisted refugee return;
>· Initiating a process for implementing European standards regarding
>minority rights;
>· Nullifying the discriminatory elements of the Information and
>University Laws, and supporting the return of purged judges and
>professors in their positions;
>· The release of political prisoners abducted from Kosovo;
>· An immediate investigation of the fate of Ivan Stambolic;
>· Beginning legal actions in response to criminal acts that have not
>been properly investigated by the current authorities according to the
>rule of law, and speeding up the investigation into the unsolved case of
>killed journalist Slavko Curuvija.
>
>Given the immense damage done to the region by the FRY government, 
>to welcome the country back into the OSCE, without requiring pledges 
>to take positive remedial steps would serve neither the interests of 
>the people of Yugoslavia, nor the OSCE itself.
>
>Yours sincerely,
>Aaron Rhodes (Executive Director)
>Ludmilla Alexeyeva (President)
>__
>International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
>Wickenburggasse 14/7
>A-1080 Vienna
>Tel. +43-1-408 88 22
>Fax: +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 50
>________________________________________
>
>______________________________________
>2ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE DUBRAVA MASSACRE
>     Two years later: The lack of justice surrounding this horrifying 
>incident is an international disgrace.
>
>In remembrance of the Dubrava massacre at Istok, Kosova which took 
>place on May 22 and May 23, 1999, we remind readers everywhere of 
>the terrible suffering these prisoners endured. The ICTY 
>investigation report has not yet been released. The Association of 
>Political Prisoners in Prishtina and the Peja group of Dubrava 
>prison survivors are staging demonstrations in Istok and Prishtina 
>this week, demanding the release of the remaining 139 Albanians 
>still in Serb prisons. Until some form of true justice for this 
>horrible war crime takes place, the survivors cannot forget what 
>happened. Listed below: The Albanian prisoners, falsely tried and 
>falsely accused of terrorism, are still being guarded by some of the 
>same men who tried to slaughter them at Dubrava.  I have visited 70 
>Dubrava survivors staging a week long hunger strike in front of the 
>prison last fall. I also visited the mass grave nearby where 
>investigators had left behind a disgraceful mess of blankets, shoes, 
>pants, and upturned soil. The report on Dubrava done by Human Rights 
>Watch should be published in two months, according to Fred Abraham.
>
>"In a nearby village named Rakos, the war crimes tribunal has 
>reportedly found 97 bodies in a mass grave, thought to be the bodies 
>of inmates from the prison. Investigators from the tribunal at The 
>Hague have exhumed the site, and they have also investigated what 
>happened at the prison. But they have not yet released any public 
>findings." (NY Times article, Nov. 1999)
>
>       DUBRAVA MASSACRE SURVIVORS STILL IN SERB PRISONS
>Bedri Kukalaj-age 23. Shot in the jaw and eye. Belgrade Central 
>Prison. Starving, unable to eat. Sentenced to 10 years. Request for 
>humanitarian release denied.
>Nait Hasani-age 36. Wounded in the chest. Belgrade Central Prison.
>Xhavit Kolgeci-age 27.  Nish Prison. Sentenced to 11 years.
>Milazim Kolgeci-age 40. Nis prison. Sentenced to 12 years.
>Aslan Lumi-age 48. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 12 years.
>Besim Rama- age 36. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 20 years. Nish Prison.
>Ismet Berbati-age 36. Nish Prison.
>Besim Zymberi-age 33. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 14 years. Very 
>poor health. Request for humanitarian release ignored.
>Agim Recica-age 38. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 13 years.
>Ejup Salihu-age 27. Belgrade Prison. Sentenced to 5 years.
>Luan Mazreku-age 23. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 20 years without 
>evidence. Case is up for appeal.
>Bekim Mazreku-age 23. Nish Prison. Sentenced to 20 years. Case up for appeal.
>Idriz Asllani-age 48.
>Dubrava Prisoner-Disappeared May 16, 1999-Professor Ukshin Hoti
>***************************************************************
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