Amnesty International Report 1995 - Yugoslavia

Some 300 people were detained for political reasons on charges of having sought to jeopardize Yugoslavia's territorial integrity by force of arms. Over 130 people – more than 90 ethnic Albanians and 45 Slav Muslims – were convicted in trials which violated international standards for fair trial. Some were prisoners of conscience. Other prisoners of conscience included conscientious objectors to military service. The first trial of a defendant accused of war crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina began in November. Over 2,500 people were ill-treated or tortured by police primarily because of their ethnic identity. The majority of victims were ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province, but there were also many cases involving Muslims from the Sandzak region. There were also cases of police ill-treating or torturing Serbs and Montenegrins. Five men, four of them ethnic Albanians, died after ill-treatment in police custody and 10 others were shot dead by police, some in disputed circumstances. At least four men were sentenced to death for murder. In August the Yugoslav Government publicly withdrew support from Radovan Karadziç and other Bosnian Serb representatives after they refused to accept a UN-sponsored peace settlement. In response the UN partially suspended sanctions imposed in 1992 on Serbia and Montenegro because of their involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Around 450,000 refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia remained in Serbia and Montenegro. The majority were Serbs who had arrived since 1991. Some 300 people were arrested and charged under Articles 116 and 136 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code with having sought to undermine Yugoslavia's territorial integrity by force of arms. They included over 250 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province and some 45 Slav Muslims from the Sandzak area of Serbia and Montenegro which borders on Bosnia-Herzegovina. Over 160 were ethnic Albanian former police employees detained in November and December. Lawyers claimed that many of them had been severely tortured following arrest; one of them, Ramadan Ndrecaj, was admitted to hospital as a result of injuries inflicted by police. Political trials took place which violated international standards for fair trial. Over 90 ethnic Albanians, many of them activists of the Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës (LDK), the Democratic League of Kosovo, the main ethnic Albanian political party in Kosovo province, were convicted during 1994. Also convicted during the year were 45 Slav Muslims, including leading members of the Stranka Demokratske Akcije (SDA), the Democratic Action Party, which rallies Muslims in the Sandzak area. In February, 17 ethnic Albanians, who had been detained since their arrest in 1993, were sentenced by a court in Prißtina to between one and 10 years' imprisonment. They were accused of founding an organization aimed at seeking by force of arms the secession of Kosovo province and areas of Montenegro inhabited by ethnic Albanians. Several were accused of having smuggled weapons into Kosovo. Almost all the accused stated in court that police had extorted statements from them by beatings and – in several cases – by electric shocks. Some were severely injured: among them Raif Qela, whose injuries were confirmed by a medical certificate. In October a court in Novi Pazar sentenced 24 Muslims, SDA members, to between one and six years' imprisonment, also on charges under Articles 116 and 136. They were accused of aiming to establish the Sandzak region as an independent state. They were charged with creating military and police units and with obtaining arms and organizing the training of terrorist groups. Most of the accused admitted distributing arms, which they said they had done to ensure the self-defence of the local Muslim population. They denied all other charges. They stated in court that they had made false confessions after police had beaten or threatened them. Six of the accused remained in detention; the others had been released earlier or were freed pending appeal. In December a further 21 Muslims, including leaders and members of the SDA in Montenegro, were sentenced to between two and seven years' imprisonment on similar charges by a court in Bijelo Polje. The accused alleged that following arrest they had been beaten with truncheons and subjected to electric shocks. Characteristic of these and many other similar trials of ethnic Albanians was that most of the accused had been denied contact with their lawyers following arrest and during much or all of the investigation proceedings. Many alleged that as a result of torture or ill-treatment by police they had made false self-incriminating statements which they had repeated to investigation judges out of fear of reprisals. In some cases there was medical evidence to support allegations of ill-treatment, although in others medical examinations, if they took place at all, were too delayed to confirm or refute allegations. The limited information available about these trials suggested that some of the defendants were prisoners of conscience, among them Ismail Kastrati, Sylejman Ahmeti and Mustafë Ibrahimi, who were arrested in May. In October they were convicted of founding a Chamber of Commerce, one of the many institutions created by ethnic Albanians outside the structure of Serbian state institutions. They were sentenced to between two and two and a half years' imprisonment, but were released pending appeal. Prisoners of conscience also included conscientious objectors to military service. Among them was Vilmos Almasi, an ethnic Hungarian from the Vojvodina, who was imprisoned from May to September for having refused, on grounds of conscience, to report for reserve duty in the (former) Yugoslav National Army in 1992. A number of ethnic Albanian men were imprisoned for failing to report for military service or for deserting from the (former) Yugoslav National Army in 1991. In most cases their draft evasion or desertion was probably politically motivated. They included Blerim Sejdiu, who was sentenced to five months' imprisonment by a military court in Nis in March for failing to report for military service, and Fatmir Osmani and Hajdar Jashari who were sentenced to eight months' imprisonment in December for deserting from the Army of Yugoslavia in 1993 while performing military service. In May the right to perform civilian service for those refusing military service on conscientious grounds was introduced, but the length of service was 24 months, twice the length of military service. This right did not apply retroactively. In June the authorities extradited a suspected war criminal to the de facto Serbian authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was suspected of having led a Serbian paramilitary group which abducted two groups of Muslim civilians from Serbia and Montenegro in 1992 and 1993. In both cases they were travelling by public transport and were abducted as their route briefly took them into Bosnian territory. Their fate remained unknown (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 and 1994). It was not known whether any proceedings were started against him. The first trial in Yugoslavia of a defendant accused of war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina began in November. Dusan Vuckoviç went on trial in Íabac on charges of having committed war crimes while operating with Serbian paramilitary units in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was accused of killing 16 Muslim civilians and wounding 12 others while they were unarmed and under guard in a village near Zvornik in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992. He was also charged with rape and looting on Serbian territory just over the border. There were daily reports of the ill-treatment or torture of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province, most frequently in the context of systematic arms searches which were carried out throughout the year by the largely Serbian police force. Over 3,000 families underwent searches of this kind. In other instances police ill-treated ethnic Albanians held in police custody for questioning or when checking identities in the street. Up to 2,000 people were ill-treated, among them some children. Many of the victims were political activists, or teachers who rejected the curricula and education in the Serbian language laid down by the Serbian authorities. In February police beat Ali Murati, aged 90, until he lost consciousness, while carrying out an arms search at his home near Podujevo. In April a high-school student, Arian Curri, was arrested and beaten by police officers in Peç. One of them carved a Serbian symbol on his chest with a knife. In June Nebih Zogaj, a primary school headmaster and LDK activist, was arrested on 10 occasions by police in Suva Reka and repeatedly beaten. As a result he was admitted to hospital for treatment at least twice. Police also systematically used violence and threats in the course of similar arms searches in the Sandzak. For example, in January and February police carried out mass house searches of Muslims in Prijepolje, arresting over 400 people, although in most cases no arms were found. Many of those arrested were severely beaten, sometimes with metal clubs; some were reportedly subjected to electric shocks or sexual abuse. Other forms of ill-treatment included deprivation of food, water and sleep and threats of death or imprisonment. There were also reports of police violence against Serbs and Montenegrins. For example, in June police in Cetinje beat and injured Sinisa Andjeliç and Goran Vusuroviç, witnesses to a brawl, after they refused to sign statements which they regarded as untrue, compiled by police officers. Four ethnic Albanians and a Rom in Kosovo province apparently died as a result of ill-treatment in police custody. They included Hajdin Bislimi, who was arrested in May in Kosovska Mitrovica and beaten over three days by police who reportedly suspected his young sons of having bought stolen goods. He was admitted to hospital with a perforated stomach ulcer and died in early July. In December Hasan Cubolli, aged 80, died the day after being detained and allegedly beaten by police in Podujevo. Two other ethnic Albanians apparently committed suicide as a result of police ill-treatment. It appears that no investigation of these deaths was undertaken. Ten ethnic Albanians died and 11 others were wounded after being shot by police or soldiers. In several of these cases the authorities claimed that officers had acted in self-defence. However, in others it was clear that no officer was under attack. In July Fidan Brestovci, aged six, died after being shot by a police officer while his family were driving along a road near Urosevac; his mother and father were wounded. A police statement later said that the officer, Boban Krstiç, had mistaken the family car for that of a criminal. Boban Krstiç was detained for investigation but was reportedly released a month later, pending trial. He had not been brought to trial by the end of the year. At least four men were sentenced to death during the year for murder. There were no executions. Between January and March scores of Serb men who had sought refuge in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from conscription were forcibly returned by the Yugoslav authorities to Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to be mobilized into Serbian armed forces there. Amnesty International called for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience and for other political prisoners to receive fair trials. It urged the authorities to institute independent and impartial investigations of all allegations of torture and ill-treatment and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. In February, April and September the organization issued three reports, including Yugoslavia: Ethnic Albanians – Trial by truncheon, documenting its concerns about unfair trials and torture and ill-treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province.