Amnesty in Yugoslavia

Government Pardons 30,000 Convicts

The Yugoslav Parliament and the Serbian Legislature passed amnesty bills that will soon set free deserters from the Kosovo war, ethnic Albanian political prisoners, murderers, robbers and rapists alike

AIM Belgrade, February 27, 2001

Amnesty bills recently adopted by the Yugoslav Parliament and the Serbian Legislature will reduce or annul sentences of some 30,000 people convicted of a variety of offenses -- everything from murder, rape, and desertion, to damaging Yugoslavia's reputation. The state's mercy towards "ordinary" criminals was an immediate result of riots that erupted in Serbian prisons last autumn. Back then, the co-ministers of justice in the Serbian interim government promised inmates that their sentences would be reduced by one-third. The federal amnesty bill was passed two reasons: to free from prosecution over 25,000 deserters from the war in Kosovo and to meet the demands of the West that all ethnic Albanian prisoners, some 650 of them, be set free.

The Serbian bill adopted on Feb. 12 cuts by a quarter the sentences of all inmates convicted of minor crimes, whereas serious offenders will have their prison terms shortened by 15 percent. The latter covers such offenses as murder, abduction, rape, unnatural sexual relations, incest, aggravated and armed robbery, racketeering, and criminal conspiracy. All in all, it pertains to over 4,000 inmates, from which only those who were convicted for unnatural and other sexual relations with the infirm and minors below 14 years of age are exempt, as well as repeated offenders convicted more than three times for the same crimes.

The general arguments used to back the bills are that conditions in Serbian prisons are inhuman and that the punishment system is such that no one leaves prison a better person. Other explanations were also offered. "We were forced to pass the amnesty bill because the real thieves are scot-free, and the petty ones are in prison," said Nebojsa Lekovic, a member of the Serbian Legislature's Judiciary and Administration Committee. "The problem is we lack the facilities for the real offenders, and some 2,500 people are now waiting to be sent to prison. Our penitentiaries are overcrowded, and we have to make room for those who destroyed this country," he added.

The law, however, failed to obtain unanimous support of jurists and the general public. The non-government organization YUCOM (Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights) said that the selection of offenses to which the bill would extend was made hastily. One of such examples is rape, which is punished by between one and 10 years in jail. Some 15 women's non-government organizations dealing with male violence against women and children sent a letter of protest to the Serbian Justice Ministry and the Judiciary Committee, saying that offenses against dignity and morals should not be included in the amnesty bill. The bill also pardons a certain number of ethnic Albanians, sentenced mostly for illegal possession of weapons and blood feud-related murders.

The federal amnesty law adopted on Feb. 26, however, is politically more significant. Some 23,000 deserters and draft dodgers who did not want to go to Milosevic's war in Kosovo will receive full pardons (deserters from the previous Yugoslav wars were pardoned in 1996, after the signing of the Dayton agreement). These include draft dodgers, men who left their military units, or merely failed to report on time, as well as conscientious objectors. Many of them received Draconian sentences (from three to eight years in jail), and were often tried in absentia.

The "patriotic" opposition composed of prominent representatives of the Milosevic regime did its best to portray the law as the ultimate form of treason and a catastrophe, because it will not only pardon deserters (leaving no one to defend the country), but, even worse -- it will pardon ethnic Albanians. "They are not our political opponents, but the worst kind of terrorists. To pardon the terrorists is a disgrace and humiliation of our people who fought against NATO's aggression against our country," said Mira Markovic, Milosevic's wife and Yugoslav MP.

The facts, however, reveal a different picture: the federal amnesty law pardons those ethnic Albanians who in the period from April 27, 1992, and Oct. 7, 2000, committed the crimes of armed rebellion, inciting the violent overthrow of the constitutional order, and of conspiracy to commit hostile acts (this being the most numerous group). Those convicted of terrorism will not be pardoned. According to estimates of non-government organizations, there are some 180 of them. They include the so-called "Djakovica Group," consisting of 143 ethnic Albanians convicted of terrorism in a controversial trial last year (among other things, the trial made no attempt to determine individual responsibility).

Given that amnesty is never granted to terrorists anywhere in the world, their release will be carried out by special procedure. "I have submitted a draft document to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, proposing the release of 140 ethnic Albanian inmates held in our prisons without any actually valid legal grounds. Namely, they were charged with terrorism in 1999 in Kosovo and Metohija, but no evidence was presented at their trial, investigators did not prove anything, and court process abounded in all sorts of irregularities... The actual terrorists managed to escape, and innocent people were apprehended and sent to prison instead. President Kostunica will decide whether this group of ethnic Albanian inmates will be set free," Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac told the federal Parliament.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe set the release of ethnic Albanian prisoners as a condition for admitting Yugoslavia. Prior to the recent visit of International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte to Belgrade, and her request that Milosevic and other indictees be extradited, this was the West's main demand. Last autumn, President Kos tunica decided to release ethnic Albanian poetess Flora Brovina, who was serving a 12-year sentence for terrorism.

Roksanda Nincic

(AIM)