AI INDEX: EUR 70/009/2004 1 April 2004
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Serbia and Montenegro (Kosovo)
The legacy of past human rights abuses
3. Police torture/ill-treatment and impunity
The concerns raised above are amplified by Amnesty International's concerns at the apparent impunity enjoyed by some members of CIVPOL and KFOR suspected of violations of human rights and criminal offences against the civilian population in Kosovo. This was highlighted by the case of an Austrian CIVPOL officer, Martin Almer, suspected, along with three members of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS), of the torture and ill-treatment of an ethnic Albanian detainee, Gezim Curri. Amnesty International is informed that the officer's immunity from prosecution - enjoyed by all UNMIK personnel under UNMIK Regulation 2000/47(27) - was waived by the UN and he was arrested on 26 February 2002 and subsequently placed in investigative detention. However, he was reportedly subsequently driven by Austrian officers across the border into Macedonia, from where he was flown to Austria. Following an investigation by CIVPOL into the alleged ill-treatment of the detainee and the Austrian police officer's exit from Kosovo, the case file was passed to an international investigative judge who formally indicted the suspect. In June 2002 Amnesty International wrote to the Austrian government who, despite an international arrest warrant, continued to refuse to extradite the officer to face the charges or bring him to justice. According to a report in the Viennese daily Die Presse of 6 June 2002, the officer was still working in the Austrian police force. On 7 October 2003 Martin Almer was sentenced in absentia to three years' imprisonment, while two former KPS officers, Feriz Thaqi and Isa Olluri, were sentenced to six months for ill-treatment and obtaining a false confession by force.