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UNMIK/PR/600 SRSG Meets Former Detainees Mr. Hans Haekkerup met today with a delegation from the Committee of former Detainees, who urged the SRSG to do all he could to ensure the quick release and return of some 245 Kosovo Albanians remaining in Serbian prisons. The SRSG told the four-person delegation that during his meetings yesterday in Belgrade, he again raised the issue of detainees and missing persons with FRY and Serb authorities, as did members of the UN Security Council delegation during their one-day visit to the FRY capital. Mr. Haekkerup reminded the Committee members that during his tenure as head of the UNMIK mission, several hundred detainees had been released. Of those who remain incarcerated, some are political prisoners, and others were sentenced as common criminals. Belgrade officials told the SRSG that the political prisoners are being processed by the Serbian judicial system and the cases should be finalized soon. Mr. Haekkerup has proposed that the common criminals be returned to Kosovo for a review of their cases, and if appropriate they would serve the rest of their sentences here. Belgrade authorities expressed readiness to consider the proposal, he said. As for missing persons, Mr. Haekkerup said that both he and his Belgrade interlocutors have raised the issue many times. Some 3,600 people are missing from Kosovo-mostly Kosovo Albanians, but also more than 1,000 Kosovo Serbs and people from other communities as well. Families of all were eager to know the truth, and some light may be shed when DNA testing begins in the near future, he said. According to an agreement between UNMIK and the International Committee on Missing Persons, DNA testing will soon be taken on samples from families of the missing and compared with samples from the remains discovered so far. Also several gravesites in Kosovo have not yet been exhumed, he said. The SRSG has proposed that Kosovo Albanian forensics experts or representatives of organizations of families of the missing attend the exhumations of mass graves which may contain Kosovo Albanian victims. He also proposed that Serb experts also be present during work at gravesites in Kosovo believed to contain Serb victims. It was also important that the courts and ICTY look into who committed specific atrocities. Mr. Enver Dugolli, a former prisoner, explained that he and others including Ms. Flora Brovina, had created the committee to "do more about releases and the missing." "The prisoners should be back and part of Kosovo, no matter why they were sentenced," he said. "There are people in prison who could contribute here,… who could support stabilization and the mission." On Monday, the committee members had presented the Security Council delegation with a petition asking that the Council issue a resolution calling for the immediate release of all prisoners. Mr. Haekkerup said that he would continue to raise the issue with the authorities in Belgrade, which was the primary way in which he could attempt to influence a decision. He said that changes were occurring in Belgrade and that "one should not underestimate that process." "I can assure you that I will keep pressing for the return of the detainees," he said. The SRSG added that while demonstrations were essential to the
democratic process, blocking entrance and exits at the Government building
as demonstrators had done last week was not a democratic
practice.
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