Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
95
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
wrote to the SRSG concerning the detention under
Executive Orders of Afrim Zeqiri, an ethnic Albanian
from Cernica. Afrim Zeqiri was originally detained on
the order of the Gjilan (Gnjilane) District Court during
an investigation into the murder of two Serbs and the
injury of two others. Following an order for his
release, he was subsequently detained under
Executive Orders from 26 July to 14 September 2000
and - following a month in which his detention was
authorized by a judge - from 14 November until 12
February. During this time, for a total period of three
weeks, his detention was neither authorized by a judge
nor by the SRSG. Despite the organization’s
representations that such detentions failed to comply
with international standards, inter alia in failing to
provide any person deprived of their liberty with
access to a mechanism to challenge the lawfulness of
their detention, Afrim Zeqiri was held in detention
under Executive Orders until 28 May 2001, when he
was charged with murder and attempted murder,
under the applicable law.
Other detentions under Executive Orders included
that of three men suspected of involvement in the
Podujevo bus bombing on 16 February (see below).
Avdi Behluli, Qele Gashi and Jusuf Veliu were
arrested during the period 19 to 20 March by KFOR
and UNMIK police. On 28 March, following an
appeal against their detention, a panel of international
judges at the Pristina District Court ordered their
immediate release. Despite the order of the court,
Avdi Behluli, Qele Gashi and Jusuf Veliu have
remained in detention at the KFOR detention facility
at Camp Bondsteel until the end of this period, under
successive Executive Orders, without recourse to a
court to challenge the lawfulness of the deprivation of
their liberty. The organization is concerned that Avdi
Behluli, Qele Gashi and Jusuf Veliu were denied their
rights - under Article 5 of the European Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms (ECHR) - to be promptly notified of the
reason for their arrest, to be brought promptly before
a judge, and to be tried within a reasonable time.
KFOR detentions
AI was also concerned about the continuing practice
of arbitrary arrests and detentions - known as
“COMKFOR holds” - which the organization had
previously characterized as unlawful. COMKFOR
detentions are ordered on the authority of the
Commander of KFOR on the basis of UN SC
Resolution 1244/1999, again in the absence of any
judicial process to determine detention. Detainees are
held on a thirty-day renewable basis, usually at the US
KFOR base Camp Bondsteel, but can be held for
shorter or longer periods before release. Like SRSG
detentions, COMKFOR holds contravene Article 5 of
the ECHR , as they deny people deprived of their
liberty access to the means to challenge the basis of
their detention.
Arrests and short-term detentions by KFOR - on
a “screen and release” basis - increased following the
amnesty provided at the end of May by KFOR to
members of the Liberation Army of Presevo,
Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB). Though the
majority of men who handed themselves in to KFOR
were released within 24 hours, others were detained
on entry into Kosovo on suspicion of being a member
of an armed group or of carrying a weapon. In June,
KFOR shifted their focus from the Presevo Valley to
the border with FRYOM, setting out to interdict the
supply of arms and passage of men suspected to be
members of the NLA between Kosovo and
Macedonia.
On 10 May 42 ethnic Albanians, many of them
from Macedonia, who had been detained on 30 March
on suspicion of membership of the NLA, were
released on the order of the Kosovo Supreme Court as
no decision to prosecute the arrested men had been
filed by the investigating judge. An spokesperson
from UNMIK also admitted that many of the detainees
had not been taken before the investigating judge
during their period of detention. During June,
according to KFOR , 83 men attempting to enter
Kosovo from Macedonia were turned back, and a
further 87 were arrested for illegally crossing the
border; a further 121 were arrested on suspicion of
being members of the Macedonian NLA (National
Liberation Army). AI was concerned at the arbitrary
arrests of men crossing the border into Kosovo as
refugees on suspicion of NLA membership.
Missing persons
In March, UNMIK took over responsibility for the
investigations, exhumation, identification and re-
burial program in Kosovo from the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(Tribunal), which had conducted investigations and
exhumations during 1999 and 2000. By July 2001,
according to the Tribunal 4,392 bodies had been
excavated from 876 graves in Kosovo, and autopsies
had been carried out on 3,620 bodies.
On 10 April, the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) published an updated Book of
Missing Persons in Kosovo, listing 3,525 people
reported missing in Kosovo between January 1998
and April 2001, and including more than 2000 ethnic
Albanians, the rest being Serbs, Roma and other
members of other minorities. According to figures
quoted by the Serb Association of Families of Missing
and Abducted Persons of Kosovo, and apparently not
contested by the ICRC, the numbers of missing Serbs
and Roma may be as high as 1,300, around 75 per cent
of whom were alleged to have been abducted since the
since the arrival of UNMIK and KFOR in July 1999.
Members of Roma associations separately claim a
figure of 800 missing in the same period. The
organization was particularly concerned that the fate
of Roma, believed to have been abducted by the KLA,
was not being adequately investigated by the UNMIK
Police Missing Persons Unit, and took steps to ensure
that this was remedied.
On 26 March, the UNMIK Police Missing
Persons Unit reported that by the end of their first year
of operation, 376 cases of “disappearances” had been