[A-PAL] A-PAL NEWSLETTER March 11, 2002

[Alice Mead]

A-PAL (Albanian Prisoner Advocacy)
March 11, 2002
         RETURN THE REMAINING 167 ALBANIAN PRISONERS TO KOSOVA


                       A-PAL STATEMENT

We support the statement by Natasha Kandic regarding the need for an 
investigation into the murder of Fehmi Agani, but also mention, 
again, the need for an investigation into the "disappearance" of 
released prisoner, Ukshin Hoti. Someone gave the orders for these 
particular crimes. Someone gave orders for the prison massacre at 
Dubrava and the outrageous, brutal torture of the many hundreds of 
illegally detained people in Lipjan and the Prishtina police station.
Judge Danica Marinkovic was the official in charge of these districts 
at this time.
Later on, when Marinkovic became the investigating judge in Nis of 
the artificially created (and therefore illegal) court that 
reinterrogated, tortured, extracted forced confessions, and conducted 
trials against hundreds of Albanians without evidence, she was acting 
outside the framework of the constitution, the Geneva Conventions, UN 
1244, and numerous ICCPR protocols on arrest and detention. All of 
these laws were violated repeatedly and flagrantly, with complete 
impunity- even now.

IF THE REMAINING PRISONERS ARE NOT RELEASED BY MARCH 31, 2002, WE 
WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO BEGIN PRESSURE FOR PROSECUTION OF THE 
INDIVIDUAL SERB MINISTRY OF JUSTICE OFFICIALS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE 
MURDER, DISAPPEARANCES, TORTURE, FALSE TRIALS AND INHUMANE PRISON 
CONDITIONS THAT THE 2,300 ALBANIAN PRISONERS WERE SUBJECTED TO AND 
STILL ARE SUBJECTED TO. International laws mean nothing, or worse 
than nothing, if they are not enforced. This is A-pal's next 
responsiblity and we know it.

We support Ms. Kandic's call for real justice. "Their concern is 
warranted: the wall of silence is cracking."
************************************************************

THE DISTURBING TRUTH
Natasa Kandic
Humanitarian Law Center
8 March 2002

Judge Danica Marinkovic, formerly investigating judge of the Pristina
District Court, reacted to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) press
release on the murder of Kosovo Albanian politician Fehmi Agani by
accusing the HLC and its executive director, Natasa Kandic, of lying.
According to Judge Marinkovic, Predrag Nikolic and Zoran Dzeletovic, who

were police officers in Kosovo and to whom I referred in connection with
the murder, performed their duty "honorably" and Agani was killed by the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).  In her defense of these two ex-police
officers, she asserted that members of the force once saved my life in a
Kosovo village during the NATO bombing in spite of my working againstthem.

In an effort to clarify the murder of Agani, I shall set out facts that
will show beyond doubt just how "honorably" the cited policemen did
their job in Kosovo.  On 6 May 1999, the day of Agani's murder, Predrag
Nikolic and Zoran Dzeletovic killed five members of the Blakqori family
- Miradije (54), Fehmi (60), their son Labinot (14), Mahmut (56), and
his wife Sabile (59) - on the rail track from Lipljan to Kosovo Polje.
The Pristina Police Department filed criminal charges against Nikolic
and Dzeletovic as well as Ivan Ivanov, their fellow-officer, on 27 May
1999 (Ku.br.546/99).  The accompanying documentation, including the
prosecutor's request for an investigation, decision to institute the
investigation, and detention orders, were either removed to Serbia or
destroyed.

Judge Marinkovic sets herself up as a protector of Serb victims and the
Serbian police but her attempts to manipulate public opinion are in
vain.  It is known within the police force who killed Fehmi Agani, who
did what in Kosovo, who fired the guns, who removed the corpses, who
looted by the truckload, who brought the orders from Belgrade and
conveyed the president's commendations and expressions of support.
These people, who were involved in the crimes or in shielding the
perpetrators on the pretext of defending Serbia and its people from
NATO, are now making lists of traitors in their own ranks and having
them placed under surveillance.

Judges who served on crisis teams are trying to obliterate the evidence
of their presence at those meetings.  Some judges, prosecutors and
police chiefs are destroying any remaining papers that might implicate
them, forging documents, and testing the strength of the wall of
silence.  Top officials of the former Kosovo police and the Socialist
Party of Serbia are worried about what could happen if "traitors" among
them started talking.  Their concern is warranted: the wall of silence
is cracking.

More and more policemen are coming out with what really happened in
Kosovo.  It was from them that I first heard about the murder of Fehmi
Agani.  I also heard from them that liquidation orders were not given
only by police and military commanders.  They told me Danica Marinkovic
personally ordered several wounded men of the Ahmeti family to be shot
on 28 February 1998 in Likosane village.  Then an investigating judge,
she came to conduct an on-site investigation together with Jovica
Jovanovic, the deputy district prosecutor, and a team of investigators.
There was a pile of bodies outside the Ahmeti house in which some men
were still giving signs of life.  In the presence of about 30 members of

the Special Anti-terrorist Units, Danica Marinkovic allegedly said: "I'm

not taking them - kill them."  The men were finished off with a Heckler
weapon.  There was no investigation and, on 1 March 1998, 14 corpses
were taken to the Pristina hospital morgue.  The investigating judge did

not order autopsies to be performed and, after they were identified, the

bodies were claimed by relatives.  Members of the police force assigned
to the Likosane operation said that rifles and grenades were placed next

to the bodies, after which photographs were taken and used to "inform"
the public about the incident.

While in Kosovo during the NATO bombing, I was frightened most of all by

the Serbian police, paramilitary units and such "protectors" of Serbs as

Judge Danica Marinkovic.  In the silence that prevailed in Serbia and
Kosovo, anyone who tried to help Albanians was an enemy, a spy, a
traitor.  The police and the Kosovo Serbs were intoxicated with the
official sanction to defend Serbia by any means.   In such a climate, I
was less afraid of crossing a bridge than of the policemen I saw behind
refugee columns, standing around burnt houses, or at checkpoints on the
roads.  Every time I passed without having my papers scrutinized I felt
very lucky.

But, on 27 May 1999, the day the indictment against Milosevic was made
public, I was on my way to Prizren to get out the wife and child of the
editor of the Koha Ditore newspaper when the police stopped me at a
checkpoint in Lipljan.  They asked for my ID and searched the car in
which they found HLC reports on human rights violations. They
immediately contacted the State Security and took me to a house which
served as their headquarters where two inspectors questioned me for
hours.  My driver was held separately and told he would be killed like
everyone who spoke English.  When I said where I was going and why, they

started shouting that I was a spy and traitor and that they would not
let me drive Albanians around.  Threatening to charge me with espionage,

they said I would disappear in the night and they would tell the public
I went missing in KLA-controlled territory.  I suggested that they
consider the credibility of a report on the disappearance of a human
rights activist on the very day the Milosevic indictment was made
public.  They told me to hand over my money.  I refused and said they
could take it by force like they were doing with Albanians.  In the end,

they did not take it though they could have.  I told them openly I would

not stay silent about what was happening in Kosovo, adding that I had
already stated publicly that Fehmi Agani was killed by the police.  At
the mention of Agani, one of the inspectors said it was "a mistake."  I
do not know what he meant by that but he in effect admitted that Agani
was murdered by Serbian police.  In my mind, I had come to terms with
the possibility of being "disappeared" like many others in Kosovo at the

time, and I do not owe them a debt of gratitude for not killing me.
They let me go late that evening when a third inspector appeared with
word from Belgrade that I was not "their case."
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