The current number of detainees in Kosovo is difficult to determine since the government does not provide updated figures. According to the Serbian Ministry of Justice, 1,242 ethnic Albanians had been charged with “terrorist acts” as of October 3, 1998. From this number, only 684 were in custody.16 Human rights and humanitarian aid groups believe the number is higher; according to the Priština-based Association of Political Prisoners, approximately 1,500 ethnic Albanians are currently in detention.17

The confusion over the number of detainees is linked to the problem of “disappearances” in Kosovo. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that well over one hundred ethnic Albanians have “disappeared” in Kosovo since February 199818, approximately half of whom were last seen in the custody of the police.19

A look at the numbers of arrests in just some of Kosovo’s towns and cities suggests that the figures for the entire province are higher than the government suggests.

· According to Adem Bajri, a prominent lawyer in Pec, 251 ethnic Albanians were in the Pec jail facing charges of terrorist activity as of September 21, 1998. Criminal charges had been filed against 510 others who remain at large. Mr. Bajri told Human Rights Watch that, in September, he personally had twenty-four clients in prison, all of whom were facing charges of terrorism. Mr. Bajri was allowed to visit his clients and said that virtually all of them showed signs of torture, including injuries such as bruises on the body and broken bones.20

· Hezër Susuri, a lawyer in Prizren, told Human Rights that he personally had forty clients as of late September, all of them facing charges of terrorism. According to Susuri, between 180 and 200 ethnic Albanians are in prison in Prizren; approximately 150 of them had been charged, while the rest were still under investigation, as of September 21.21

· On September 4 and 5, the Serbian police detained more than 600 ethnic Albanians from around the villages of Ponorac, Ratkovac, and Drenovac who had been internally displaced because of fighting.22 According to diplomatic sources who spoke with witnesses, the women and children were released, and the men were taken to the Ponorac schoolhouse, where they were filmed by Serbian state television as “captured terrorists.” Most of the men were reportedly released on September 5 but an estimated thirty-one people remained in police custody, nine of whom were released a few days later. Human Rights Watch saw photographs of the alleged “terrorists,” which showed a large group of men on their knees with their hands behind their heads being guarded by armed police officers.

· On September 24, the pro-government Media Center in Priština reported that, according to the police, 194 ethnic Albanians had been arrested on September 22 and 23 during a police action in the Cicavica Mountains northwest of Priština. The authorities have opened investigations against those arrested. In contrast, on September 26, the ethnic Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore cited Ministry of Interior spokesman Bozidar Filic as saying that 325 Albanians had been arrested in the police action.23

· According to the testimony of villagers taken by Human Rights Watch, on September 28, Serbian police detained all of the ethnic Albanians in a 250-vehicle civilian convoy that was heading back to the town of Vranic.24 The women and children were detained at a school in Vranic, while the men were separated into two groups. One group of approximately 300 men was detained in a house near the school in Vranic. The other group was detained in a school in the nearby village of Bukoš. Once the villagers were in detention, the police burned and looted the village and the convoy. (See the Human Rights Watch website (www.hrw.org) for photographs.)

The approximately 300 men detained in Vranic, most of whom were fit and of fighting age, according to villagers, were taken to Prizren for questioning on September 29. According to villagers detained at Bukoš, the men were made to shout pro-Serbian slogans and give the three-fingered Serbian nationalist salute. One man told Human Rights Watch how the detained men were made to crouch all night, and that he personally had been kicked in the face by the police.25

Human Rights Watch was in Vranic on September 30 when a group of approximately 200 men were returned to the village from their detention in Prizren. They told Human Rights Watch that they had been detained at the Prizren fire station, where they had been kept without food and maltreated during interrogation about ties to the KLA. Human Rights Watch observed that many of the men had severely swollen hands, consistent with their testimonies of having been beaten with rubber batons. Some of the returning men also had bruises on their backs. A twenty-eight-year-old man told Human Rights Watch: “They kept beating us all over with rubber batons and their fists. I was beaten for at least two hours. We were given no food or water.”26

· Between September 24 and 27, during the government’s most recent large-scale offensive, the police detained an estimated 400 men from villages in Drenica, including Likošane, Gradice, Dobroshec, and Obrinje. All of them were taken to the police station in Glogovac where they were held in the station’s basement or in a warehouse next to the station for three days. Three men who were detained at this time told Human Rights Watch of systematic interrogations and police beatings of the detainees.27 Two of the men, interviewed separately, testified to having witnessed a policeman pull a handcuffed detainee off of a tractor during transportation to Glogovac and slit his throat.

One of these witnesses, B.H., told Human Rights Watch that he and about one hundred other people were surrounded by the police on September 27 in the forest called Zabelle I Bunarit near Obrinje. The police separated the men and women and then, after a thorough search, further separated another twenty-two men,. These men were bound together two by two and beaten. They were then transported by tractor to nearby Likovac, where the police were based. He told Human Rights Watch what happened next:

A police escort was with us. A policeman was driving the tractor and a police car was in front and behind... In Likovac, the police claimed that they had brought in some KLA, so in one moment, a policeman ran near the tractor, grabbed this guy by the hair [Driton Hysenaj] and slit his throat. I was wearing white socks and they became red because the tractor did not have a place to let the blood drain.28

This account was corroborated by D.H. in a separate interview with Human Rights Watch.29

According to all three witnesses, approximately 450 men were held at the Glogovac police station, where they were systematically interrogated about the activities of the KLA. Many of them were beaten. Human RightsWatch researchers saw one of the men, A.H., on September 29 with black and blue marks on his lower back and buttocks that were consistent with his claims of having been beaten. Most of the men were released after they passed a paraffin test, but seven men were sent to Priština with the police.30

Some specific cases of arrest are outlined below:

A Bus From Slovenia

On July 20, the police stopped a bus from the Fati Tours company near Podujevo that was traveling to Kosovo from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Fifty-three ethnic Albanians who had been working in Slovenia were initially arrested. A taxi driver, Besnik Kastrati, who was waiting in Lipljan to pick up people from the bus, was also arrested.

According to Bajram Krasniqi, a lawyer who defended fourteen of the detainees, the group was denied contact with their families and lawyers for three days, while being held in Priština. On July 27, they were transferred to Prokuple prison, which lies approximately twenty kilometers outside of Kosovo in the direction of Belgrade.

Krasniqi visited the detainees in Prokuple on July 29. He told Human Rights Watch:

Everyone I saw had marks on their faces. I spoke with fourteen of them who are my clients. They said that all forms of torture had been used: beatings on the fingers, blows from fists and the butt of a gun. It all happened in Priština. They said they were beaten by the police and prison guards. Some of them had open wounds on their faces. But in Prokuple the treatment was correct.31

According to Krasniqi, thirty-nine of the detainees were released on August 17. Those still in prison are accused of enemy activities against the state according to Article 136, paragraph 1 of the Serbian penal code.32 The prosecutor alleges that the men were returning to Kosovo to join the KLA.

According to Krasniqi, the police took from the accused a total of 352,018 DM at the time of arrest. Human Rights Watch saw receipts that the police gave to three different individuals, totaling 20,500 DM.

Fatime Boshnjaku

Fatime Boshnjaku has been the secretary of the Mother Theresa Society (MTS) in Ðakovica, the largest local humanitarian organization in Kosovo, for the past nine years. She was arrested on July 13 and is currently in detention awaiting trial on charges of terrorism, based on Articles 125 and 136, paragraph 1, of the Serbian penal code.33 Her lawyer and family members who visited her report that she was beaten.

According to her lawyer, family members, and officials at MTS, who were interviewed separately, Boshnjaku was delivering food and medicine to the village of Šeremet near Ðakovica on July 11. After her second drop off, shewas taken by the police for an “informative talk” in the Ðakovica police station that lasted approximately two hours. The police reportedly told Boshnjaku that she had to provide the police with a list of everything she distributed.

The next day, according to an MTS official, she was allowed to pass through a police checkpoint on her way to Brekoc village, where she delivered supplies.34 She returned to Ðakovica, reloaded her van, and headed off again for Brekoc. This time she was stopped by the police around 2:00 p.m. and taken back to the police station in Ðakovica. Her two colleagues, Uran Luxha and Shar Hasimja, were also detained. Luxha and Hasimja were released the next day, on the condition that they report again to the police on July 14. Boshnjaku was held in Ðakovica until July 15, when she was taken in front of the investigative judge in Pec, who ordered her into pre-trial detention for thirty days.

Boshnjaku’s family was allowed to visit her on July 12 and 14 and told Human Rights Watch that she had not been beaten. They did not hire a lawyer at that time because, on July 14, the police informed her brother-in-law that Boshnjaku would soon be released.

Luxha and Hasimja were summoned back to the police station again around July 21. According to Boshnjaku’s family, they were beaten by the police, forced to sign statements against Boshnjaku, and then released. Both men have since gone into hiding.35

Boshnjaku’s family first had permission to visit the Lipljan women’s prison on July 23, but they were denied entry that day because, according to the prison guards, there had been a flood in the visiting room. Boshnjaku’s lawyer, Liria Osmani, was also not allowed to visit her client on July 23, because of “flooding.” Osmani first visited on July 26, and told Human Rights Watch that she was not able to talk with her client in the presence of the guards, but that Boshnjaku’s arms were “completely black.”36

Boshnjaku’s family visited for the first time on August 3 and again on August 17. Her sister told Human Rights Watch that she showed no open signs of physical abuse, but that “she was very upset and out of control,” and that she was having trouble hearing out of one ear.

On August 13, Boshnjaku’s pre-trial detention was extended for another sixty days. As of mid-December, no trial date had been set.

According to Boshnjaku’s family and lawyer, the police in Ðakovica may have been angry about an incident on May 18, when four trucks of aid from the U.S. agency Mercy Corp were confiscated by the police. Boshnjaku reportedly complained to U.S. Chief of Mission Richard Miles, who was in Ðakovica that day, and he was able to secure the release of the supplies.37

Zahride Podrimçaku

Ms. Zahride Podrimçaku, a twenty-eight-year-old activist with the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Glogovac, was detained by police in Priština on June 8, 1998, together with Ibrahim Makolli, whoworks at the council’s offices in Priština.38 Mr. Makolli was released after a few hours of questioning, but Ms. Podrimçaku remained in custody and was denied contact with a lawyer or her family for several days. On September 8, she was charged with committing “terrorist acts” (Articles 125 and 136 of the Serbian penal code) for allegedly having transported military goods, including an automatic weapon, to a KLA commander in Drenica.39

The state accused Podrimçaku of two concrete acts: first, that in December 1997 she delivered an automatic weapon to a KLA commander in Drenica named Sabit Gecaj; second, that she carried a suitcase with military clothing (five shirts, three sweaters, three pants, and three boots) to the KLA, again to commander Gecaj.

According to Podrimçaku’s lawyer, Liria Osmani, Podrimçaku admitted to carrying both suitcases on Gecaj’s request. After the first delivery, she saw that there was a machine gun inside, and she still agreed to carry the second suitcase, which evidently only had the clothing. Osmani said that Podrimçaku was beaten in prison. She told Human Rights Watch:

I first visited on June 19 in Lipljan. She was in bad condition. She couldn’t sit in the chair. She had external signs of abuse, and she couldn’t sit on the chair. Even ten days later, she was still in bad shape. She said she was continuously beaten, especially with their fists and by kicking. She was beaten by two women, but not on the face.

When I visited on August 12 she complained heavily because they had beaten her a lot, and she had pain in her shoulders and hip. She wanted to tell me more, but there were two guards present. The younger guard said the visit must end.40

According to Liria Osmani, she complained to the head of the women’s prison about Podrimçaku’s beatings. The head of the prison reportedly admitted that they had beaten Podrimçaku, but “only once,” because she was not respecting the prison regulations. Podrimçaku is currently awaiting trial but, as of December 1, no court date had been set.

Besa Arllati

Ms. Besa Arllati, chairwoman of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) information commission in Ðakovica, was arrested on May 26 and brought to the police station in Ðakovica, where she was interrogated and beaten by police chief Sreten Camatovic.41 The police reportedly wanted to know about two Serbian policemen, Nikola Jovanovic and Rade Popadic, who they believed had been seized by the KLA. Arllati was detained and interrogated on and off for the next few days, until June 1, about the work of the KLA and the activities of Albanians in the area.

Mevlude Sarraqi

Mrs. Mevlude Sarraqi, member of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) presidency, head of the LDK Women’s Forum, and a member of the shadow Kosovo parliament, was arrested on June 1 in Ðakovica and charged with “association for the purpose of hostile activity” under Article 136 of the Serbian penal code. She was arrested in advance of a rally organized by the Women’s Forum to protest the detention of LDK activists, such as Dr. Fehmi Vula and Besa Arllati. Sarraqi’s lawyer, Liria Osmani, told Human Rights Watch that her client had been physically maltreated during her four days in the Ðakovica state security building.42 As of December 1, she was in Lipljan women’s prison awaiting trial.43

A.D.

A.D. is a primary school teacher with five children from Zaskok village near Uroševac. He was arrested on June 28, 1998, tortured with electric shock, and then held in prison for eighty-six days.

According to A.D., three or four plainclothes policemen came to his home around 5:30 a.m. and ordered him to the police station in Uroševac without an explanation. They took him to the state security building, on the fourth floor, where they accused him of hiding weapons for the KLA, which, he claimed, was not true. They insisted that he had weapons and was working with the KLA in the village and started to beat him. He told Human Rights Watch:

They beat me with a truncheon all over my body, but not on the head... They were changing, three or four policemen always beating me. They asked about my activity in the KLA, about weaponry. Do you know this person, for example. They let me recover, and we had a normal talk, and then they would start the beating again.44

According to A.D., he slept the first night in the interrogation room in Uroševac, and was then taken to Gnijlane prison. The night of June 30, the beating and torture continued:

They took me around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.. There were some questions and some answers. Where are your weapons and with whom do you cooperate? There was also electric shock. The rubber baton was the least severe. I got used to it. It was like nothing.

They used electric shock. There is some kind of engine. They kept touching me with a part, and every time I received a shock. That was the most difficult. Then they would ask some questions. It was very painful... I can’t remember the number of times, I could only count the first few. I lost consciousness. They used water and a ventilator to reawaken me.

According to A.D., the abuse stopped after three days in prison. On July 3 he was taken to the investigative judge Danica Marinkovic in Priština, who ordered A.D. to be held in pre-trial detention. A.D. had a lawyer present, who was subsequently allowed to visit him four or five times in prison. On September 22, the charges against A.D. were dropped without an explanation, and he was released.

Xhavet Haziri

Xhavet Haziri, thirty-eight years old from Obilic, is a former political prisoner and a staff member at the main office of the Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms office in Priština. Since August 1998, he had been responsible at the council for maintaining the list of those arrested and “disappeared” in Kosovo.

On September 17, 1998, Haziri was abducted by unknown individuals believed to be the police near the Llapit mosque in central Priština. Witnesses to the abduction told staff members at the council that they saw Haziri walking toward work around 11:00 a.m. A car stopped in front of him, the witnesses said, threw him in the car and drove away. Neither Haziri’s family nor the council has had any information about his whereabouts since then, despite repeated inquiries to the police. Human Rights Watch was unable to speak directly with the witnesses, since they had left Kosovo.

Dr. Hafir Shala

On April 10, 1998, Dr. Hafir Shala, a doctor with the Health Care Center in Glogovac, was taken into detention by the police, along with two friends, Hetem Sinani and Shaban Neziri. The latter two were interrogated and released but Mr. Shala was held. He has not been seen or heard from since.

The three men were traveling in Shaban Neziri’s car to Priština when the traffic police stopped the car near Slatina village around 8:00 a.m. As the police were checking their identification, three men in plain clothes emerged from a black jeep that was parked nearby and told Dr. Shala to come with them to Priština, while Mr. Sinani and Mr. Neziri were instructed to follow in their car. All three men were taken to the police station in Priština and interrogated in separate rooms until 2:00 p.m.. At that time, Mr. Sinani and Mr. Neziri were released. They told their lawyer, Destan Rukiqi, that they heard Dr. Shala screaming from pain from an unknown room in the police station as they left.45

Mr. Rukiqi told Human Rights Watch that he had taken various measures to locate Dr. Shala, all to no avail. On April 16, he wrote to the Serbian Ministry of Justice, the Serbian Prosecutor’s office, and the district prosecutor in Priština. The next day, the Priština prosecutor, Slavko Stevanovic, said the State Security office in Priština had no information on Shala’s whereabouts. Letters written by Human Rights Watch to the Serbian and Yugoslav Ministries of Interior and Justice on July 20, 1998, on Dr. Shala’s case remain unanswered.

Nait Hasani

Nait Hasani was arrested and tortured in 1997. According to his family and lawyer, the beatings are continuing.
Hasani, a thirty-three-year-old man from Randobrava village near Prizren, was arrested in Priština on January 28, 1997. The next day, Nait’s family got unofficial information that Nait had been severely beaten and was in the Priština hospital. A health worker at the hospital claimed to have seen Nait handcuffed to a bed in a coma with severe injuries on his face. Nait’s family and lawyer, Fazli Balaj, were unable to get any information from the police or the hospital. Nait’s father, Xhemail, and brother were denied entry to the hospital by police guards.46

In the early morning of January 31, Nait was moved from the hospital to an undisclosed location. His family and lawyer did not know where he was for approximately one month, and feared he was dead. On February 14, the district prosecutor denied that Hasani was in police custody.47

On February 28, Hasani reappeared and was brought before an investigating magistrate. His lawyer Fazli Balaj visited Hasani for the first time and was told that Hasani had been tortured by the police while being held in incommunicado detention.

In December 1997, Nait Hasani was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on charges of “terrorism,” after a trial Amnesty International determined was not fair.48 Complaints of torture were rejected by the presiding judge.

According to Hasani’s father and lawyer, the beatings did not stop, even in 1998. Xhemail Hasani told Human Rights Watch that Nait showed signs of having been beaten during his visit to Mitrovica prison on July 4, 1998. Nait reportedly looked better during the next visit on August 8, but no visitors were allowed for the following visit, scheduled for September 5. On September 29, Xhemail Hasani received a telegram, allegedly from his son, that was seen by Human Rights Watch. It said:

I am informing you that my health condition is good and I hope you are all well. As usual, you can visit me on the first Saturday of October, but in the future visits we must speak Serbian. And you must have permission from the judge to visit. Please say hi to everyone for me.

- Your son.49

20 Human Rights Watch interview with Aden Bajri, Pec, September 21, 1998.

21 Human Rights Watch interview with Hazër Susuri, Prizren, September 21, 1998.

22 Ljubomir Milasin, “Hundreds of Kosovars Detained, UNHCR Warns of Bosnia Spectre,” AFP, September 8, 1998, and Tanjug, September 6, 1998.

23 Koha Ditore, “PB e Serbise: Ka perfunduar aksioni ne Qyqavice, jane arrestuar 325 shqiptare,” September 26, 1998.

24 According to villagers, the police sent an elderly Albanian into the forest to tell them it was safe for them to return home.

25 Human Rights Watch interview, September 30, 1998, Vranic.

26 Human Rights Watch interview with H.R., September 30, 1998, Vranic.

27 Two of the men were interviewed by Human Rights Watch together, but the third man was interviewed separately. Their stories corroborated each other.

28 Human Rights Watch interview with B.H., November 12, 1998.

29 Human Rights Watch interview with D.H. November 12, 1998.

30 Human Rights Watch interview, Gornji Obrinje, September 29, 1998.

31 Human Rights Watch interview with Bajram Krasniqi, September 19, 1998.

32 Republic of Serbia Prosecutor’s Office, Kt. Nr. 55/98, July 23, 1998, Prokuple, signed by District Prosecutor Miroslav Nikiolic.

Those in prison are: Ramadan Avdiu, Ali Gashi, Qazim Krasniqi, Azem Krasniqi, Imer Krasniqi, Burim Blaca, Naim Balje, Nuhi Beke, Enver Zogaj, Feriz Zabelaj, Halit Nerecaj, Rahim Alia, Xhavit Kacanik, Hajrullah Samadraxha, and S. Bytyci.

33 Okruzni Sud u Prizrenu, Ki. Br. 40/98, August 6, 1998.

34 Human Rights Watch interview with Marte Polokaj, Priština, September 22, 1998.

35 Human Rights Watch interview with Nesrete and Erzen Boshnjaku, Priština, September 27, 1998.

36 Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priština, October 1, 1998.

37 Mercy Corp in Priština confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the police had confiscated a load on May 18, but that it was eventually returned.

38 Podrimçaku had been investigating what happened on May 31, 1998, in the village of Novi Poklek, when police detained ten ethnic Albanian men during an attack on the village. The body of one of the men, Ardian Deliu, was found the next day, while the other nine men remain missing and are presumed dead. Her arrest occurred about one hour after she had spoken with a Human Rights Watch researcher about her investigations in Novi Poklek.

39 Republika Srbija, AP Kosovo I Metohija, Okruzno Javno Tuzilaštvo, KT br. 126/98, Priština, September 8, 1998.

40 Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priština, October 1, 1998.

41 Humanitarian Law Center, “Kosovo - Disappearances in Times of Armed Conflict,” Spotlight Report No. 27, August 5, 1998.

42 Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priština, October 1, 1998.

43 Ibid.

44 Human Rights Watch interview with A.D., Zaskok, September 25, 1998.

45 Human Rights Watch interview with Destan Rukiqi, Priština, June 3, 1998.

46 Human Rights Watch interview with Fazli Balaj, Priština, February 19, 1997.

47 Doc. U. VJC-4, signed by District Prosecutor Slavko Stevanovic, February 14, 1997.

48 “Unfair Trials and Abuses of Due Process,” Amnesty International, A Human Rights Crisis in Kosovo Province, Document Series A: Events to June 1998, June 1998.

49 Sremska Mitrovica 62/60 290826