Judiciary Chaos

The thirty-eight year old Nedzamin Sejfula from Pec worked in Switzerland as a cook. Prior to last year's conflict in Kosovo, he went home to take care of his parents since his other two brothers couldn't: one was working as a doctor in Pristina, the other one was studying management in London. On his way home, he took care to avoid areas where clashes were being fought, however he didn't bypass what KLA referred to as "liberated areas".

On the way he heard nearby gunshots. He became worried about his uncle who he knew was somewhere in the vicinity and decided to go and look for him. However, he ran into a KLA patrol instead. He explained who he was and what he was looking for but they still took his ID card and went off somewhere to check. In the meantime his uncle appeared, and asked him incredulously - what are you doing here, run. Sejfula waited and waited yet since the KLA members failed to return, he became scared and ran. His ID card was later found in KLA headquarters and Sejfula was arrested and made to appear in the Pozarevac Court. In the meantime he did his time and was released.

This is one of a hundred stories of Albanian prisoners in Serbia who have not only become the cause of concern of international humanitarian organizations but also a currency for political deals.

According to data of the Fund for Humanitarian Rights compiled by
lawyers, the Red Cross and scarce official data which is accessible to the public, at the moment when KFOR troops entered last year, 2100 people had been arrested in Kosovo. Until today, 1070 were released (recently 20-30 are being released every day). Of those still in jail, some twenty or so prisoners are Serbs, meaning that around 960-970 Albanian prisoners are currently being held in Serbia. Scattered mainly in prisons in Sremska Mitrovica, Pozarevac, Nis and in smaller numbers in Vranje, Zajecar, Leskovac and Belgrade.

Around 300 people are imprisoned due to so-called ordinary crimes. The rest are political prisoners, sentenced for crimes against the constitutional system, i.e. conspiring in enemy activities and terrorism.

Almost all of the political prisoners have been in jail since 1999, while a few were sentenced in Kosovo courts during 1998. Therefore, all have been in jail for at least a year. Some are put on trial, others´ trials are still pending and they are still held in detention. However, according to the Criminal Proceedings Act detention can last up to three days (in times of war 30 days with possible extensions). According to the same Act, those who are charged must be released if no indictment is raised against him or her in the period of six months. Not only are internal provisions being violated but also international legal standards as specified in the conventions Yugoslavia has ratified. Especially the Convention Against Torture by which torture must be prevented and its perpetrators punished (prisoners testify in court about confessions being extracted by physical and psychological force) and the Convention on Citizens´ and Political Rights, which sets the standards for a just and fair trial.

Lawyers who are handling the Albanian prisoners cases recognize two groups amongst them. The first is made up of those who were picked up by the Serbian authorities while they were withdrawing from Kosovo (some were already on trial, some were arrested during the war, some were literally picked up along the way); the other is made up of Albanian students who have been tried and are still on trial in Belgrade.

Speaking about the first, lawyer Rajko Danilovic primarily mentions improvisations in their indictments. He says that is partially understandable: even prior to the war with NATO, the state in Kosovo was no longer functioning and especially ceased to do so when the war and bombing campaign were launched. The accused were kept in private houses and interrogated there, inquiries were held only in the degree where that was possible, both neat and messy reports were filed.

When they began to withdraw,  the courts and prisoners were moved as well. They were then placed in various prisons throughout Serbia and efforts were made to organize trials. The Pristina Court is operative in Leskovac and Nis, the Prizren one in Pozarevac... Trials are  
abbreviated, held on the basis of the reports, evidence cannot be presented. Sometimes the trial is exclusively based on police interrogation reports.

The trials, explains Danilovic, are usually connected to the consequences. In case soldiers or policemen were killed, the indictments are harsher with minimum five-years sentences. If the consequences were less serious, they are charged of conspiring for terrorist purposes. Otherwise, terrorist charges are tried in accordance with international standards which have been incorporated into our legislation. Word here is of a political motive due to which groups or gangs are formed which cause political effects by attacking civilians. However, KLA didn't always endanger civilians yet there was organized violence against the state, i.e. the army and police.

One of the better known cases is the Djakovica group made up of 144 accused. One day the police forces entered into Djakovica, rounded up all the men in the center of town and dispatched all women and children to Albania. Trial examiners had later allegedly ascertained that they had traces of gunpowder on their arms and shoulders, that is that they had fired their guns. However, others claim that the majority of those who had fired ran into the woods where they were subsequently killed (around 700 Albanians are still missing in that area). The public is acquainted with the Mazreku brothers case as well, charged with multiple crimes against Serbian civilians in Klecka. They confessed to their crimes in a statement made in front of TV cameras, which was broadcast in its entirety a number of times on various TV channels - only to later say that the confession had been extracted by force. The indictment stresses that women and children were killed and burned there, however the findings of the Finnish forensic medical team - the same team who had investigated the crime in Racak and on other six locations - say no childrens nor female corpses were found there. The trial is in progress.

According to the findings of Rajko Danilovic, amongst those accused and indicted, not a single person is truly identified with KLA activities. The only well known person amongst them is Flora Brovina, and she is well known not on account of being a KLA member but rather as a poet, doctor and president of the Democratic League of Kosovo Women who took the task of educating Kosovo's women on herself. Her non- government organization was registered, she collaborated with other NGOs in the country and abroad, everything was legal. Her sin lies in the fact that she organized demonstrations a couple of times when someone was beaten up or killed. Brovina was held in police for questioning a number of times and was indicted on the basis of article 125 of the FRY Penal Code (terrorism). If she had been sentenced on the basis of that article, she would probably have been sentenced to a year in prison. However, on the basis of two reports from the inquiry her indictment was changed to a more serious criminal act. The sentence was based on those two reports - however not even what is written in the reports justifies the sentence. Anyway, she is now serving a 12 year prison sentence. Recently the minister in the government of Serbia Dragoljub Jankovic visited her and other prisoners. He told Brovina that she was looking well. She answered that she had taken special pains for the occasion.

So all right, where are the culprits - the organizers, commanders or perpetrators - of undisputed crimes against civilians in Kosovo? "They negotiated with them in Rambouillet" says Rajko Danilovic curtly.

When talking about the students who found themselves in Belgrade when the war broke out and who were arrested there, two groups exist there as well. The first, on the basis of a ruling of the president of the council of the District Court in Belgrade, Zoran Savic, were freed.

The trial of the other group is now in progress (scheduled to  continue on May 18), and has been dragging its feet for around a year at the desk of the president of the council Dragisa Slijepcevic. Almost all of the students from that group came to Belgrade from the University of Sarajevo when the war broke out in BiH. Most of them had been studying pharmacy and agriculture. Amongst them was Zef Baljuca, a catholic and a goldsmith from Rijeka, who is being tried in absentia. One of the students is being charged with taking part in KLA actions during his vacation in Pec.

Six of the indicted from the second group were studying in Belgrade  when the bombing commenced, of which those in the know with regards to these trials conclude that they must have been loyal since those others were in various places - but definitely not here. - I believe that these two trials have been rigged with the goal of ethnically cleansing the University of Belgrade, says Danilovic.

Two indictments exist against the group which is now on trial. The first being that they had formed a terrorist group which had planned various raids in Belgrade during the war: planting bombs in the shelters with women and children, at the Republic Square at the time when the protest concerts were being held, in the main post office. They never managed to do any of those things due to - as the Serbian minister of police Vlajko Stojiljkovic recently said in a speech - the good work of the police forces. The second indictment relates to crimes committed in Kosovo itself. Namely, of taking part in battles on the KLA side when two policemen were killed and, beside this, of torturing and massacring the dead police captain Srdjan Petrovic (cutting off his nose, ears, sexual organ). The tape of their confession - extracted by police torture, as they testified at the beginning of the trial - was broadcast in the Aktuelnosti program (May 30, 1999). The students admitted to the most gruesome crimes - yet other proof, apart from that tape, doesn't exist. Now the plaintiff (Veselin Mrdak) is asking that the aforementioned program serve as proof in court proceedings - which would be an absolute judiciary precedent. The plaintiff, asking that the Aktuelnosti program be "viewed", added that their guilt "seen from the spontaneous and convincing statements" in front of RTS cameras, was obvious. In case judge Slijepcevic was to accept such a thing, that would mean that those who are charged can no longer rely on any guarantees during proceedings in our courts and that they can be convicted of the most horrendous crimes without having previously been proven guilty.