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 CHARGES AGAINST KOSOVO ALBANIANS ACCUSED OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OFFENSES
MUST BE DROPPED
21 November 1999
Criminal proceedings are currently under way in Serbia
against several hundred Kosovo Albanians who were arrested during the NATO military
intervention and charged with offenses against the constitutional order and security of FR
Yugoslavia. The majority of these trials, in which the defendants are accused of
conspiracy for the purpose of hostile activity in conjunction with terrorism, are being
held before the District Court in Leskovac. Only a few cases are being heard by the
District Courts in Zajecar and Vranje. Some 110 detainees, who were held in custody for
six months and were not indicted, were reportedly released in November.
Twenty-one persons were discharged from the Zajecar and 27
from the Leskovac prisons, and arrived in Pristina on 14 November. There has been no
confirmation of the release of the remaining 62. On 17 and 18 November, the Leskovac
District Court for the first time heard 128 Albanians from the Cabrat neighborhood of
Djakovica who, along with 27 others, allegedly carried out three separate acts of
terrorism during the state of war in which two members of the Serbian security forces were
killed and several wounded. On the basis of information collected on the ground from
eyewitnesses and the statements of the accused to the investigating judge, the
Humanitarian Law Center points out that these persons are civilians who were arrested in
the course of May, either in the streets, at their homes, or taken out of columns of
expelled Kosovo Albanians fleeing to neighboring Albania. About 150 Albanians were
convicted in October and November and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 15
years. The strictest sentences were handed down by the Prokuplje District Court. The
presiding member of the panel at all trials before this Court is its President, Judge
Branislav Niketic. In every case and regardless of whether the accused has defense counsel
of his own choice, Judge Niketi? assigns court-appointed lawyers, most frequently Vukoje
Jokovic from Pristina and Desimir Stamenkovic from Prokuplje.
The HLC has learned that Desimir Stamenkovic waived the
right of appeal in the case of Avdullah Lutolli and Avdurahman Latifi, who were sentenced
to five years in prison, thus depriving them of the right to resort to a superior court
and prove their innocence. Taking advantage of the defendants’ fear and ignorance of
legal procedure, Judge Branislav Niketic entered in the trial record that they fully
agreed with the actions of their court-appointed lawyer. The HLC has also been informed
that Judge Niketic denied a motion by the lawyer Gorica Stanisavljevic to restore the
rights of the defendants. Furthermore, Judge Niketic on 11 November resumed a trial in
spite of a motion filed by lawyers Husnija Bitiqi, Gradimir Ilic and Dragoljub Todorovic
with regard to violations of the Criminal Procedure Code and seeking his recusal and the
recusal of the Prokuplje District Prosecutor, the Serbian Public Prosecutor and the
President the Serbian Supreme Court. Where the criminal offenses of terrorism and
conspiracy for the purpose of hostile activity are concerned, the Leskovac District Court
hands down more lenient sentences. When sentencing defendants convicted of setting up
subversive groups, Judges Brankica Dasic and Zivota Djoincevic hand down terms of two to
two-and-a-half years, whereas Judge Goran Petronijevic imposes prison terms of three and
more years for the same offense. Judges Dasic and Djoincevic give those found guilty of
membership of the Kosovo Liberation Army a maximum of one-and-a-half years in prison,
while Judge Petronijevic sentences them to at least three years.
These judges conduct up to six trials a day, each of which
lasts from 30 minutes to, at best, one hour. Observers have the impression that they are
hurrying to conclude all the proceedings as soon as possible. The judges render their
decisions on the basis of the statements made by the accused to the police and the
investigating judge. That the trials are merely for the sake of form is obvious also from
the fact that the judges fail to enter in the record the testimony of the defendants in
which they describe how confessions were extracted from them, noting only that they deny
the statements they made in the pre-trial proceedings. In addition, the trials are held
without professional interpreters: four people who act as interpreters are by profession a
mason, jeweler, retired police officer and typist. Natasa Kandic, the Executive Director
of the Humanitarian Law Center, urges judges to stop these political trials and to
demonstrate their courage as professionals by dismissing all cases involving politically
motivated offenses in connection with the Kosovo conflict. She calls on the competent
judge to discharge immediately Jahir Agushi, a cancer patient, whose trial is scheduled
for 8 December.
With regard to the Djakovica group, Natasa Kandic expects
the Leskovac District Court to dismiss the charges against civilians who were arrested
while fleeing to Albania, in the streets, or at their homes. She also urges the
appropriate Serbian government agencies publish the names of the latest group of released
Kosovo Albanians in order to clear up the confusion caused when the International Red
Cross recently announced that 47 detainees had been released.
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