HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- http://uk.news.yahoo.com/020326/80/cv987.htmlBelgrade hands over Kosovo Albanian prisonersBy Shaban Buza and Edita Bucinca
MERDARE/PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - Around 150 Kosovo Albanian prisoners have been transferred from Serbia proper to jails in their homeland, fulfilling a key condition for keeping U.S. financial aid flowing to Belgrade.
Thousands of people cheering and waving red Albanian flags lined the route of seven buses carrying the prisoners after they crossed into Kosovo at the village of Merdare. Police escorted the convoy and a United Nations helicopter flew overhead.
Kosovo's U.N. governor Michael Steiner said the transfer on Tuesday meant all Kosovo Albanian prisoners in Serbian jails who wanted to return to the province had now done so. Those who did not have legally justifiable convictions would be freed swiftly.
"This is about the rule of law. Those who have committed a crime will serve out their sentences not in Serbia but here in Kosovo," Steiner told reporters in the Kosovo capital Pristina.
"Those who have not committed crimes will be released, most of them tomorrow, the rest within weeks, not months," he said. The German diplomat say did not specify how many prisoners were involved but Serbian authorities put the figure at 145.
Kosovo legally remains part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia but has been a de facto international protectorate since NATO's 1999 air war to end Serb repression of the province's ethnic Albanian majority, during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic.
Under U.S. legislation, reformers who ousted Milosevic in 2000 have to pass several key tests including the release of political prisoners by the end of this month or a face a freeze in aid from Washington worth around $40 million.
Many of those transferred on Tuesday were jailed on terrorism charges during Milosevic's crackdown in Kosovo and are regarded by rights groups as political prisoners. Milosevic is now on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
At the end of the Kosovo war, rights groups say there were around 2,000 Kosovo Albanians in jails in Serbia proper. Many were detained during the conflict and transported out of the province in its dying days in June 1999.
According to the U.S. legislation, Belgrade must also show it is cooperating with the war crimes tribunal. Many analysts believe Serbia will hand over at least one indictee to the court before the deadline to try to satisfy this condition.
Serbian officials have insisted the transfer of the prisoners to jails in Kosovo is a humanitarian gesture unconnected to the U.S. deadline.
Under a related deal with the U.N., Serbian officials say 38 Serbs jailed in Kosovo will be allowed to serve their sentences in central Serbia if they have relatives there. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://TOPICA.COM/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
