UNMIK-UNMIK Police-KFOR- Press Briefing, 11 February 2002

UNMIK Spokesman Simon Haselock
KFOR Spokesman Squadron Leader Daz Slaven
UNMIK Police Pristina Regional Superintendent Paul Hammond
UNMIK Police Spokesman Derek Chappell

UNMIK Spokesperson Simon Haselock

Detention appeal rejected

An international panel of judges has rejected an appeal of the three former members of the KLA against their 30-day detention.

Mr. Steiner's arrival

As you know we are expecting Mr. Steiner to arrive on Thursday. We will be issuing a press advisory on arrangements but basically, there will be a photo call at the airport when he arrives and then he will come here and make a brief statement, answer one or two very quick questions.

On Friday he will give a press conference in the morning at a time to be confirmed in the HQ building.

Thursday briefing

On Thursday, 14 February, our regular press briefing will be advanced by half an hour. Instead of 11.30 hrs, we will have the briefing at 11.00 hrs.

KJI session on Trafficking regulation

The Kosovo Judicial Institute is tomorrow hosting an information session on the Trafficking Regulation. It has been apparent since the regulation came into force that the judiciary, which deals with trafficking cases has faced particular challenges in its application - such as the crimes connected with trafficking and special rules with regard to the treatment and questioning of victims. All media are welcome to the KJI tomorrow beginning at 9.30 a.m.

A media advisory will be issued later today.

UNMIK Police Pristina Regional Superintendent Paul Hammond

The demonstration on Friday was know to the police, however we had not been informed by the organizers of any route they way they wished to march along. We have anticipated that they would march along the same route that they had done the previous Monday. We were prepared to facilitate the march along that route by stopping the traffic and allowing for very peaceful demonstrations which have occurred the previous Monday.

Unfortunately the demonstrations did not follow the same route. And I know that the organizers were trying to control certain elements within the crowd but as the crowd turned onto Ramiz Sadiku street from Airport boulevard they started to stone the police at the front of the parade who was purely there to try to facilitate the march. A number of police officers were hurt, and a number of our vehicles were damaged. I should point out that at this stage I was there and I did see several persons from the demonstration who were trying to stop this group of perhaps up to 500 people from stoning the police.

And I am sure that everybody will accept that this type of behavior does not go along with peaceful demonstration. As the regional commander for Pristina, we will do everything to facilitate a peaceful demonstrations and we would now request that the person who is responsible for organizing any march must identify himself to us; that 48 hours notice must be given to the police in the are where the demonstration is to be held; the date time and purpose of the protest must be stated; a starting point, finishing point and the designated route for the march must be specified and stewards are to be appointed by the organizers to regulate their own demonstrations. We will do all in our power to facilitate those peaceful demonstrations. I would like to go on and comment about the demonstrations that were held yesterday.

I would like to thank organizers of that demonstration for a peaceful and orderly demonstration. They did give us notice of their intentions and what they were doing and I did speak personally yesterday to the organizer to thank him personally for his cooperation and information that he gave us. At this moment in time I will hand back to Derek.

UNMIK Police Spokesman Derek Chappell

Conditions for Public Protest

With effect from Sunday, February 10, regulations have been applied to the holding of public marches and demonstrations throughout Kosovo.

All future marches must comply with these rules:

Marches that do not comply with these regulations will be deemed unlawful and will not be allowed to move.

These rules will protect the rights of the majority of people who want to peacefully demonstrate and will protect public safety from the actions of the small criminal element that hide behind legitimate protest.

Kidnappers Get a Taste of the Police Information System

UNMIK Police have established the Kosovo Police Information System (KPIS) network that links every Police Station across Kosovo for the purpose of crime database management. Through the day database officers painstakingly log details of every crime committed in the station AOR into their computers that are linked on a Kosovo-wide network.

Kidnappers of a Swiss national from Pec got a taste of the KPIS database system last week. Around midnight of 5th February, a Swiss female lodging in a Hotel in Pec reported to UNMIK Police that her husband had left early in the morning for some business and had not returned.

Next morning the wife received two calls from her husband on her cell phone informing her that he had been kidnapped and that the kidnappers were demanding ransom of 150,000 DM for his release. The kidnappers wanted a coded money transfer to be made through a multi-national bank in the name of three K-Albanian males for 50,000 DM each. Under the service offered by the bank the depositor is given a code to be conveyed in confidence to the payee who can then withdraw the amount from any branch by giving his name and the code.

Armed with the names, investigators of Pec station scanned the KPIS database for information on the kidnappers. All three were listed on the database for petty crimes committed earlier. They were all residents of Smira village in Vitina.

The rest was simple. Following a phone call from Pec, Vitina Police swooped down on the kidnappers and arrested all three of them along with two other accomplices. The victim was released unhurt. A kidnapping solved in less than 24 hours. UNMIK Police are carrying out further investigations into the kidnapping.

TMK Assist Kosovo Police Service

On Friday, the 8th of February, two Kosovo Police officers in Istok stopped a vehicle for a minor traffic offence.

The vehicle contained four adult K-Albanian males.

The driver left his vehicle, threatened and then physically attacked one officer.

The three passengers then got out of the car and all attacked the two policemen.

Members of the TMK who were nearby came to the help of the KPS and together all four persons were controlled and arrested.

This incident clearly demonstrates the close relationship and partnership between all of the agencies providing security for Kosovo.

Smugglers in Pec Attempt to Bribe KPS Officers

On Sunday, 10th February, a KPS patrol from Pec Station intercepted two tankers with 28 tons of gasoline that had been smuggled into Kosovo from Montenegro.

The tankers that had successfully evaded all customs checks were apprehended while offloading their consignment at a gas station on the Pec-Decani highway.

The suspects offered gratification to the KPS officers for their release. All they achieved however was an additional charge of attempting to bribe police officers.

Police have arrested two K-Albanian male suspects in this connection and the tankers have been handed over to the Customs.

The Economic Crime Unit of Pec police are investigating the case.

Turning the Odds Against Crime

Each week we normally give you a summary of police activity. This week I would like to present that information in a way that is more meaningful.

Over the past 7 days, across Kosovo, UNMIK Police and the KPS have dealt with 168 criminal cases.

Of those 168, we have made arrests in 105 cases within 24 hours.

That represents a same day success rate of 64%.

These cases we detected resulted in 136 arrests.

The reasons for this success are the increasing willingness of victims and witnesses to call the police and to give us information.

To put this in another way: If you are planning to commit a crime, you have a 60% chance of being arrested within 24 hours of the act.

KFOR Spokesman Squadron Leader Daz Slaven

Questions:

Q: Simon, you mentioned appeal. I am not clear; who asked for appeal?

SH: The lawyers on behalf of Latif Gashi and the other two filed an appeal against their detention. That appeal was rejected by an international panel of judges.

Q: I have the information that the whole crew of the UNMIK Belgrade Liaison Office is in Pristina now. Why are they here?

SH: Do you mean our staff or …(interrupted).

Q: Your staff.

SH: There is a meeting today with members of I think the Co-ordination Centre for Kosovo and I think they have been escorted by members from the Belgrade office but I don't think there is anything particularly significant about that. There is a routine meeting going on with the members of Mr. Covic's Co-ordination Centre and I think they have probably come down with them but I wouldn't read anything significant in the fact that they are there- it is whom they are accompanying that I think is more important. I'll have to find out exactly whom they are, but the fact that the UN members of the Liaison Office are here I would not be particularly interested in. It is who they came with which is likely to be more interesting.

Q: The UN Mine Action Centre finished their mission in Kosovo as far as I am aware on the 15 of January. Given that we had to deaths related to mines I wanted to know if KFOR or any other organisation is carrying out mine clearance?

SH: I will let Daz speak for himself but KFOR aren't there to clear mines. The MAC handed that over to local organisations in Kosovo to deal with, they will only respond if there is specific unexploded device or something. But the fact that MAC has closed down does not mean that there is no mine clearing continuing. It has got to the stage where it was believed that the majority of organised, large-scale mine clearing has been carried out. Now it is just a question of moping up and the sad thing is that moping up is often in areas where it is not clear that there were mines or explosives before and that is when people get caught because they are not necessarily in areas which are marked or known as mined, in places where people do not expect to find them.

DS: KFOR provides support to the local authorities where appropriate whenever we can, but really it is a matter of education. It is keeping people aware that the danger is still there and just keeping the public aware of the danger.

SH: I mean it is something that is not limited to Kosovo, you know this. You can never clear mines and guarantee. I mean in Germany they still dig up mines and ammunition form the Second World War. In Flanders in Belgium they are still turning up staff from the First World War. I mean this will go on forever, it is always going to be a problem it never anybody is going to say that the thing is finished.

Q: Question for Mr. Chappell. There were press reports regarding some of these statements made by participants in the protest that the they were provoked by the police. Have you provoked this and do you have any evidence that there was any kind of provocation? The second is the statement from the US Office, which says there were 8 police officers injured, of those two Americans. What nations are the others and is there among them Kosovo Police Officers?

PH: I will answer that question. Yes there was a number of persons injured, they were British, American and Kosovo Police Service officers who were injured. As far as I was concerned I was there at the front of demonstrations with the police officers at the front but at no stage did we give any provocation to any of the person there. There were other incidents that happened which were not within our control. And we do not understand why the police were attacked. As far as I was concerned and I was there it was totally unprovoked.

DC: I will just add to that. I think the facts speak for themselves. If you look at the damage that was caused to locally owned businesses, I've talked to the members of the media who were here who were covering the event who were themselves attacked and to ordinary residents of Pristina who were attacked as they were drinking coffee or walking along the street. I think that indicates the aggression was directed from the crowd in many cases towards their fellow citizens.

Q: Question for Daz and UNMIK Police. Have you arrested anyone following the confiscation of former VJ uniforms and Yugoslav police uniforms and all this weapons north of Zvecan?

DS: I don't have any details of arrest at the moment but I am not sure on the follow up investigation whether anyone was detained as a result, I will come back to you on that later this morning.

DC: I don't believe anybody was arrested at the time. I will have to check to see if any further investigation has resulted in arrest in the past week.

SH: I think that Andrea might have something..

AA: They were all identified and the names were sent to the Mitrovica court.

Q: So that means that you found out who was in possession and whose house was that?

AA: Well the judiciary will follow the case. But they are free. They have not been arrested.

Q: Simon or Derek, the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade has announced that more then 500 former policeman are active in northern part of Kosovo, northern part of Mitrovica, and they are time to time causing troubles. Are you aware of this information and can you do the job in the northern part of Mitrovica now?

SH: I am not too sure whether it was the Human rights centre in Belgrade or that the information came from the Human Rights Fund or some organisation in Pristina?

Q: It is a Belgrade organisation.

SH: OK. When I saw the clips this morning I did not recognise the name of the organisation. The fact remains that the in north Mitrovica there are clearly people who are ex members of the whole of the governmental organisation like they any people who lived in Kosovo and belonged to … administration are sill here. As far as we are concerned those people are ex members of the MUP and as far as we are concerned they should not be being paid they should not be being doing any work and they should not be receiving any direction. They are ex members of the MUP. This notion that there was 500 of them which I think was on e of the quotes I mean that is ridiculous. And certainly if there are any of them formally active that is also ridiculous. But obviously we know that there are ex members there and it is very difficult to know exactly how they are working and if they are working at all. We do accept and we've always accepted that the ability to influence matters on the north side of the river has not been as good as it should be. You know that we've been frank on that. I think this effort at the moment to abolish the northern Mitrovica municipality and to open our offices there is an attempt for us to get much more control in the region, in the area and that is what we intend to do. W are not going to put a bag over our heads and ignore it but to say that there are officially MUP members working in north Mitrovica I think is misleading.

Q: Question for Regional Commander. How do you consider your self - to be policeman of the UN in Kosovo or a British one here in Kosovo?

PH: I work for the United Nations, I am British. But my interests are for the people of Kosovo and foe all the people of Kosovo and to help bring about a peaceful situation within Kosovo and to ensure law and order as we would all like to see it.

SH: Just before you leave just on the Mr. Steiner although we are bringing conference forward to 11:00 the plain maybe landing roundabout 13:00 hrs and so basically if you want to get that photo you need to be at the airport ready for 13:00. It is not going to be opportunity for correspondents so don't' going rushing out there expecting to get questions. The questions will be here.