Impunity Watch: Europe

Greek Police Bulldoze Migrant Camp

2009-07-14T00:38:31-04:00

Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PATRAS, Greece - Approximately a hundred members of the Greek Special Anti-Riots Force demolished a makeshift migrant camp in Patras before dawn yesterday morning. Patras, a port town in western Greece, has been the home of thousands of migrants who hope to make their way into Western Europe through Italy.

The police escorted bulldozers into the camp, flattening dozens of cardboard and plastic hovels, leaving only a makeshift mosque and a tent used by volunteer doctors standing. The camp was largely empty today, as residents had been forewarned of its demolition. However, approximately a hundred individuals, including thirty minors, were detained by the police and housed in a local hotel.

Photo: Part of the Patras migrant camp was set alight as police destroyed the camp. [Source: Sky News]

The Red Cross has described the early morning effort by the police as "terrorizing" the migrants, and it is reported that many were injured by police attacks.

In recent months the camp has been occupied by roughly 1,800 people, largely arriving from Afghanistan. Those living in the camp generally range between the ages of fifteen and twenty five, and have lived in the camp for months at a time without proper water or hygiene facilities. Clashes have recently been growing between Somali and Afghani residents of the camp, causing further tension with the Greek residents of Patras.

Photo: The migrant camp at Patras before its destruction. [Source: GR Reporter]

The BBC has reported that the bulldozing of the migrant camp will likely force many immigrants to seek out the services of traffickers in Athens and Italy who demand as much as $8,000 for passage out of Greece.

The bulldozing of the camp is part of an effort by the the conservative government in Athens to take tougher measures against migrants. This effort has heightened since the success of the right-wing nationalist Laos party in the recent European parliamentary election. Additionally, many Greeks regarded the camp as an eyesore for themselves and for tourists arriving from Italy, and tensions had been escalating between the city residents and camp dwellers.

Greece has recently been criticized internationally for its policy towards would-be asylum seekers. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has described the situation as an "emergency" and has called upon the Greek government to improve its procedures for receiving immigrants who claim asylum in Greece, and to upgrade their immigrant reception centers.

For more information, please see:

GR Reporter - Police destroyed illegal immigrant camp near Patra - 13 July 2009

Kathimerini - Patra immigrant camp cleared out - 13 July 2009

AFP - Police bulldoze migrant camp in Greek port - 12 July 2009

BBC - Greek police flatten migrant camp - 12 July 2009

France: Life Sentence in Anti-Semitic Murder Case

2009-07-10T23:25:25-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

Photo: Youssouf Fofana, the gang leader convicted of abducting, torturing and murdering Ilan Halimi, a 23 year-old Jewish man. [Source: Issouf Sanog/AFP/Getty Images]

PARIS, France - In a case that sent shock waves through France, Youssouf Fofana was convicted today of killing Ilan Halimi. Fofana, 28, was found guilty of the 2006 kidnapping, torture and murder of the 23-year-old Jewish man.

Fofana led a gang of twenty seven youths in Bagneux, a western suburb of Paris, who held Halimi captive for twenty four days. He was constrained and bound with tape, beaten, stabbed, slashed, and burned with cigarettes and acid. The gang, known as "the Barbarians," tied Halimi to a tree in a wooded area near a train station in Ste.-Geneviève-des-Bois, a suburb south of Paris. Naked, stabbed, and set on fire, Halimi died of his injuries on the way to the hospital.

Ilan Halimi had been lured by a young French-Iranian girl who came into the mobile phone shop where he worked and invited him to go on a date. He was abducted after driving to meet the 17-year-old girl, who was a member of Fofana's gang. In an abandoned apartment Halimi was attacked, beaten and drugged by gang members.

Fofana was quoted in 2006 as saying that the plan had been to kidnap a Jew because, "they're loaded with dough."

Photo: Ilan Halimi, the 23 year-old Jewish man tortured and murdered by Youssouf Fofana and his gang. [Source: AFP]

After Halimi's abduction the gang made phone calls to Halimi's family and sent text messages, some with horrific images of Halimi, demanding a ransom of $500,000. This sum was later decreased to $5,000. Halimi's family were instructed to send the ransom to the Ivory Coast where Fofana was later arrested.

Fofana and his gang told Halimi's family that if they did not have the money for the ransom, they should "go and get it from [their] synagogue." Furthermore, they later contacted a rabbi saying, "We have a Jew."

Ruth Halimi, mother of the victim, said that if Ilan "had not been Jewish, he would not have been murdered." Additionally, she accused the police of being slow to accept the anti-Semitic nature of her son's murder because they did not want to offend the Muslim population.

Fofana, born in France to parents from the Ivory Coast, has a history of violence and run-ins with the law. He served two years for stealing a car and beating the car's owner, and emerged as the leader of an interracial gang called "the Barbarians" after he left prison at the age of twenty one.

At the trial's opening Fofana was heard to shout, "Allah will prevail," and declared that the date of his birth was February 13, 2006, the day that Ilan Halimi died. Fofana was raised in a nominally religious family, and lawyers said that Fofana's actions emanated from his desire for money and his stereotype of Jews, rather than from genuine religious conviction.

The French authorities held a closed trial as several of the defendants were under the age of eighteen at the time of the crime. However, lawyers on both sides of the case said that this move was regrettable as the trial would have been instructive for French society.

Photo: Ilan Halimi's murder sparked a wave of public outcry in France. [Source AFP]

Halimi's murder triggered tens of thousands to take to the streets in protest of anti-Semitism in France, a country which has Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish populations. The murder came months after the violent 2005 riots in France, which underscored the depth of disenfranchisement, poverty and frustration felt by immigrant populations. Some viewed the case as representative of the poverty and ignorance experienced by immigrants in France, and the anti-Semitic stereotypes held by members of such populations as evidence of this. Additionally, the case reveals the growth in power of gangs in the poor suburbs of Paris.

Fofana, extradited to France in 2006, went on trial this past April. He was given the maximum sentence in France of life in prison with no possibility of parole for twenty two years. Fofana's accomplices received sentences ranging from fifteen to eighteen years in prison. The young woman charged with luring Halimi to his captors received nine years in prison.

For more information, please see:

NY Times - Man Sentenced to Life for Killing of Jew in France - 10 July 2009

Times Online - Youssouf Fofana jailed for the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi - 11 July 2009

BBC - Inside France's 'Barbarian' trial - 10 July 2009

Hackers: Rupert Murdoch's 'News of the World' Allegedly Involved in Mass Violation of Privacy

2009-07-09T19:59:11-04:00

By Nima Nayebi

Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe and North America

LONDON, UK - The Guardian UK reported Wednesday that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers paid out more than £1 million ($1.6 million) to gag victims of an alleged phone-hacking scheme by its News of the World and Sun newspapers. The payments were made to settle legal cases that threatened to expose the company's repeated use of criminal tactics to break stories.

Murdoch journalists helped by private investigators allegedly hacked into the voice mail boxes of thousands of public figures to gain unlawful access to confidential data such as "tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills" according to the Guardian. "Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators."

The suppressed lawsuits have been linked to the 2007 imprisonment of News of the World journalist Clive Goodman, who hacked into the mobile phones of royal staff members in violation of the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. At the time, News Group denied knowledge of any other journalists being involved in such acts and that Mr. Goodman had acted without their knowledge.

The most recent scandal reportedly involved the hacking of two to three thousand mobile phones. In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Murdoch denied knowledge of the payments. "If that had happened, I would know about it," he said. Mr. Murdoch's News Corp. owns Fox News, MySpace, Dow Jones, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, Sky Television, 20th Century Fox, and Photobucket among others.

London's Metropolitan Police is reportedly no longer investigating the case, however, the House of Commons is conducting its own investigation into the allegations. “If there were more than 1,000 phone taps, it beggars belief that this was just one journalist and that senior executives didn’t know,” said lawmaker Chris Huhne in Parliament today.

These new phone hacking allegations have brought the contentious issue of privacy as a human right into the UK spotlight.

According to Bloomberg, "[s]ome media analysts said the revelations are not a surprise given the dog-eat-dog world of U.K. tabloids."

For more information, please see:

BBC - New phone hack inquiry ruled out - 9 July 2009

Bloomberg - Murdoch Newspapers to be Probed Over Hacking Claims - 9 July 2009

Guardian UK - Sir Alex Ferguson and Alan Shearer calls were hacked - 9 July 2009

Hague Tribunal Rejects Karadzic's Immunity Claim

2009-07-09T01:03:33-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - In a thirty page ruling issued today by The Hague tribunal, Radovan Karadzic's efforts to claim immunity from war crimes prosecution were denied. This ruling opens the way for the prosecution of the Bosnian Serb leader for war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, including the three-year siege of Sarajevo and the killing of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

Photo: Radovan Karadzic [Source: CBC / Canadian Press]

Karadzic, 64, filed a motion in May claiming that in 1996 Richard C. Holbrooke, the American diplomat who helped negotiate peace in the Balkans, had made him a deal offering him immunity from prosecution by The Hague if Karadzic gave up his political power. Two former American officials have said that Holbrooke had made the promise to Karadzic through intermediaries.

Holbrooke, now serving as the special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, has denied that he ever made the promise to Karadzic, and has called Karadzic's claim, "no more than another lie from the most evil man in Europe."

Today's ruling declared that the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague would not be bound by the alleged promises. Specifically, the tribunal judges have discarded Karadzic's claim that Holbrooke had acted with the backing of the United Nations Security Council, rendering any promises irrelevant.

Karadzic allegedly masterminded the Bosnian Serb atrocities which transpired during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Arrested on a bus in Belgrade in July of 2008 after thirteen years of hiding, Karadzic claims he is innocent of the charges, and has assembled a team of legal advisors.

Karadzic's lawyers have said that he will likely appeal. However, the right to appeal the tribunal's ruling is not automatic and will have to be applied for. The court has said that it anticipates that the trial will start in September. If convicted of the eleven charges against him, including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Karadzic faces life in prison.

For more information, please see:

AP - Court rejects Karadzic motion to dismiss charges - 8 July 2009

BBC - Karadzic immunity claim rejected - 8 July 2009

NY Times - Tribunal Says Bosnian Serb's Trial Must Proceed - 8 July 2009

Reuters UK - U.N. court denies Karadzic case dismissal motion - 8 July 2009

Study Finds Parisian Police Target Arabs, Blacks

2009-07-07T00:23:20-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France - A study carried out between November 2007 and May 2008, has found that young Arab and young black men were far more likely to be stopped by police for identity checks than young white men, despite the fact that racial and ethnic profiling by police is illegal in France. Individuals who appeared to be of Arab descent were more than seven and a half times more likely to be stopped by Parisian police than white individuals, and those perceived to be black were six times more likely than white people to be stopped by the police.

The study, called "Ethnic Profiling in Paris," was conducted by the Open Society for Justice Initiative which is a program of the Soros Foundations Network and the French National Center for Scientific Research. Researchersemployed the use of trained monitors who observed as police officers made identity checks near the transit stations Gare du Nord and Châtelet-Les Halles.

In addition, the study found that the style of clothing worn by young people played an important role in how the police determined who to stop. People wearing hip-hop, punk and gothic clothing accounted for only ten percent of the individuals at the transit stations, but represented forty seven percent of the individuals stopped by the police. Two-thirds of the individuals who wore such clothing at the transit stations were classified as belonging to an ethnic minority group.

Although the report noted that the police were generally polite or neutral while engaged with those stopped, the police were more likely the detain or frisk blacks and Arabs.

The French commissioner for diversity and equal opportunity, Algerian-born Yazid Sabeg, told the New York Times that he was not particularly surprised by the findings of the study.

He said, "Profiling? It exists...It's been an issue for a long time."

Additionally, Sabeg said that there was a sense of injustice felt among Arab and black youth because they were being singled out because of their skin color. Having a sense of injustice, Sabeg said, "leads to tension among the youth and tension between the youth and the police...Social injustice and inequality of treatment produces aggression."

This sense of social injustice sparked the 2005 riots in the suburbs of Paris and in 300 other cities and towns in France, where thousands of Arab and black youths took to the streets to protest their treatment by the police.

Mr. Sabeg remarked that laws and codes prohibiting profiling don't work, and that the answer lies in better police training and recruitment.

Marie Lajus, a spokeswoman for the Parisian police, said that the criticism from the report was important and the police would try to extract lessons from it. However, Ms. Lajus noted, the study was not a representative sample of the population because the two transit stations were in places of high criminality.

Twenty one year-old Christopher Mendes, a black man who works as a network tester for a French telephone company, noted that he had been stopped several times at the Gare du Nord station while waiting for his train home to the suburbs. Mr. Mendes had even experienced having been stopped twice in the same day.

He told the New York Times,"Of course we're being screened because of our color...When it's not me, it's a friend. When it's not a friend, it's another black guy. It's infuriating when you've done nothing, because even if they search you and find nothing, the attitude won't be, 'O.K., your'e clear,' but more, 'We didn't get you this time.'"

For more information, please see:

The Open Society Justice Initiative - Report: Profiling Minorities

The Straits Times - Paris cops accused of racism - 1 July 2009

Islam Online - Paris Police Targets Arabs, Blacks: Study - 30 June 2009

NY Times - Study Says Blacks and Arabs Face Bias From Paris Police - 29 June 2009

Migrants Gathered in Calais Makeshift Camp Hoping to Reach the UK Get UN Help

2009-07-04T20:11:10-04:00

By Nima Nayebi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe and North America

Volunteers distribute food and supplies to migrants in Calais, France. Photo: UN

CALAIS, France - A group of migrant men and children are perpetually gathered in the northern port city of Calais, France with the hope of crossing the channel to the United Kingdom.

The migrants come from countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Iraq, all of which suffer from conflict and human rights abuses. Until recently, the migrants had no running water and washed up in the sea or in waste water at a nearby chemical plant.

The illegal makeshift camp of approximately an estimated 800 to 2,000 people has been nicknamed "the jungle." It sprang up in the woods near the port after the closure of the Red Cross Centre at Sangatte in November 2002. Sangatte was a strong draw for migrants trying to cross over to Britain, and it was hoped that its closure would curtail the number of incoming refugees and asylum-seekers, but the numbers have gone up instead.

A twenty-year-old migrant in the Calais camp who is determined to make it to the UK stated, "Britain has a good government. Britain will help me to get a better life." Other reasons the migrants seek to reach the UK include the ability to speak English, rather than French, or reunification with family members.

Most migrants at Calais pay smugglers to help them cross the channel. Last year, French police arrested more than 190 migrants and bulldozed some camp tents in an effort to break up the trafficking cycle.

French officials face a difficult balancing task in that they cannot offer to much humanitarian aid to the migrants lest it draw more of them to Calais, but they cannot let them starve either. Charity groups such as Salaam attempt to fill in the gap by providing foods and clothing for the migrants.

The UN Refugee Agency has now set up an office in Calais in order to help migrants with immigration issues. The UN is providing information to over 1,500 migrants about migration issues and the UK asylum process.

The agency has described relations between the migrants and the local population as "tense." Calais has an unemployment rate of 14%, and the locals loathe the presence of the migrants. They are also upset that in France, the men in the camp are left to live in deplorable condition.

The British and French governments are in discussion over the creation of a new migrant holding facility on the British side of the Calais docks. The facility would allow the two countries to break the tangle of asylum law and deport the migrants more easily. A UK Border Agency spokesperson said: "Last year alone UK Border Agency staff at our French and Belgium controls, not only searched more than one million lorries but also stopped 28,000 attempts to cross the Channel illegally. The message is clear that the only way to live and work in France and the UK is by legal routes. Working alongside our French colleagues, we will continue to offer support and humanitarian assistance to those who genuinely need it, but if people are not in need of protection we expect them to return home."

One of the migrants told the BBC: "We have come here because we had problems in Afghanistan - we are not here for enjoyment. We have problems with water, we have problems with doctors, we have problems with sleep. I just want to say help. Please help."

The Calais camp; Photos: Mirror UK (top), UPPA/Photoshot (above)

For more information, please see:

Guardian UK - Migrants in Calais need our help - 4 July 2009

BBC - Migrant squalor in Calais 'jungle' - 2 July 2009

BBC - UN to help advise Calais refugees - 1 July 2009

France 24 - UN refugee agency to set up mission in Calais - 27 May 2009

Demjanjuk Declared Fit to Stand Trial

2009-07-03T18:39:09-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger,
Impunity Watch Reporter

MUNICH, Germany - In a brief statement released today, German doctors have concluded that John Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial. Demjanjuk, 89, faces charges that he was a Nazi death camp guard, and is accused of being an accessory in the murder of 29,000 people during WWII at the Sobribor death camp in Poland.

Photo: John Demjanjuk [Source: AFP]

It is likely that formal murder charges will be filed against the retired car worker from Ohio, who was extradited from the United States in May. However, it is unclear when Demjanjuk's trial will take place. If charged as an accessory to murder, Demjanjuk faces up to fifteen years, the maximum sentence in Germany.

Demjanjuk's son sought to prevent his father's extradition to Germany, saying that Demjanjuk was dying of leukemic bone marrow disease.

He said, "With less than a year an a half for my father to live, a career-seeking German prosecutor is hastily pressing forward with a 100 percent politically-motivated effort to blame Ukrainians and Europeans for the crimes of Germans."

Demjanjuk has been treated for gout since his detention in Stadelheim jail which began in May.

Prosecutors in Munich say that the responsibility to try Demjanjuk fell upon Munich because he had been registered as living there after the second world war.

Doctors say that 89-year-old Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial as long as court sessions do not exceed two 90-minute sessions each day. [Source: Mark Duncan / AP]

Medical officials at Stadelheim prison have examined Demjanjuk, and the facility's deputy prison director said, "He is not typical for his age...he is in better shape than usual for an 89-year-old."

Ukrainian born Demjanjuk has denied being a guard at the camp, saying that he was a Red Army soldier who spent WWII as a Nazi prisoner-of-war. However, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained documents, including a photographic identity card shown below, which show that he worked at the Sobibor death camp. Additionally, they say they have written testimony placing him at the camp, and reports showing that the was trained to be a Nazi guard at Trawniki, Poland.

Photo: Demjanjuk's identity card during the war, released by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002. In the second 'Abkommandiert' line, it is written that Demjanjuk was posted at Sobibor on March 27, 1943. (For a larger image, please click on the photo.) [Source: The U.S. Department of Justice / American Spectator]

Photos: Demjanjuk in 1943, and in 2009. [Source for 2nd Photo: David I. Andersen / Cleveland Plain Dealer]

In the 1970's he was stripped of his U.S. citizenship after he was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible," a notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp. He was extradited to Israel in 1986, and sentenced to death in 1988. However, Israel's Supreme Court overturned his conviction when new evidence emerged which showed that another individual was likely the actual "Ivan."

Demjanjuk regained his U.S. citizenship, but the U.S. Department of Justice refiled its case against him in 1999 on the charge that he had worked as a guard in three other death camps. His citizenship was again rescinded in 2002.

In their annual report, the Simon Wiesenthal Center listed Demjanjuk at the top of their ten most-wanted suspected war criminals.

For more information, please see:

AlJazeera - Nazi guard suspect 'fit for trial' - 3 July 2009

CBC - Accused Nazi guard Demjanjuk deemed fit for trial - 3 July 2009

Reuters - Demjanjuk pronounced fit to stand trial in Germany - 3 July 2009

Amnesty International: Lack of Rule of Law by Russia in North Caucasus Resulting in Human Rights Violations

2009-07-01T15:38:31-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger,
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia - In a report published yesterday, Amnesty International has called on Russia to enforce rule of law in Chechnya and the north Caucasus where human rights violations continue without check. The human rights organization asserted that there will be no stability or normalization in the region until such violations are brought to an end and those responsible for the violations are held accountable.

According to the report, Amnesty international received testimonies describing:

"indiscriminate killings, excessive use of force, death and torture in custody, arbitrary and secret detention, abductions, threats to human rights activists and independent journalists, the targeting of relatives of suspected fighters and the forced evictions of internally displaced people."

The Kremlin has claimed success in stabilizing Chechnya under Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov. However, the implementation of fresh counter-terrorism operations earlier this year could allow for further abuses. In the first four months of the year as many as fifty eight enforced disappearances have occurred, whereas only seven occurred the year before. Human rights organizations have reported that most of the disappearances were committed by law enforcement personnel.

In the forty eight page report, "Rule Without Law: Human Rights Violations in the North Caucasus," accounts are made of various enforced disappearances and murders in the region, for which no accountability has been made. In one such account, the Ilaev family of Grozny were surrounded by over 100 masked men on the night of November 30. Family members were taken to a law enforcement base, and male family members were tortured. Three brothers, Ali, Akhdan, and Zurab were killed during the detention.

In a statement preceding the report, Amnesty International reporters said that the "civilian population continues to live in an atmosphere of lawlessness that engenders fear and insecurity."

The report comes in anticipation of U.S. President Barrack Obama's July 6-8 visit to Moscow.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has given officials a verbal lashing for the human rights breaches, and has vowed to battle corruption. However, Medvedev has has been criticized by human rights groups for failing to act on his promises.

For more information, please see:

AFP - Amnesty slams Russia for rights record in Chechnya - 1 July 2009

Amnesty International - Accountability for Human Rights Violations Key to Normalization in North Caucasus - 1 July 2009

Amnesty International - Russia: Ongoing abuses in North Caucasus lend lie to "Normalisation' claim - New Report - 1 July 2009

BBC - 'Abuses widespread' in N Caucasus - 1 July 2009

Reuters - N. Caucasus rights abuses stop stability - Amnesty - 30 June 2009

Former PM of Kosovo Released by Bulgarian Authorities Despite Serbian Efforts to Extradite for War Crimes

2009-06-29T18:36:47-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

SOFIA, Bulgaria - After holding Agim Ceku for two days, a Bulgarian court in the western city of Kyustendil has decided to release the former prime minister of Kosovo from their custody last Thursday. Ceku had been detained on an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes. On June 24, Serbia filed a formal request to Bulgaria for the extradition of Ceku, and Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest. Bulgarian authorities apprehended Ceku as he entered Bulgaria from Macedonia on Tuesday, June 22.

Photo: Former prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku. [Source: Reuters]

The ruling by the district court can be appealed, and Ceku must remain accessible to Bulgarian authorities until July 2. However, there has been indication that there will be no appeal.

Serbian Justice Ministry official Slobodan Homen said of of Ceku's release, "Once again, politics overcomes international law."

Ceku told the court that The Hague had already investigated and identified those people responsible for crimes. He said:

"I am not a Serbian national and never was. Serbia cannot request the extradition of foreign nationals (other than) its own."

Ceku was, at one time, top commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, composed of ethnic Albanian guerrillas. He was also prime minister of Kosovo between 2006 and 2008 before Kosovo declared its independence.

Serbia has sought his extradition for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 fighting between Serb government forces and the ethnic Albanian rebels, and has charged Ceku with "command responsibility" for the deaths of 669 Serbs and eighteen other non-Albanians during that time.

The charges against Ceku were supported by Amnesty International in a press release issued on Thursday calling for "the Bulgarian authorities to extradite promptly Agim Ceku to Serbia...to face trial on war crimes charges."

Since Kosovo declared its independence in 2008 it has been recognized by sixty countries, including most EU member states and the United States. Serbia, and it's ally Russia, have stated that they would never recognize an independent Kosovo.

This is not the first time Ceku has encountered an Interpol arrest warrant prompted by Serbia. He was detained in Colombia last month, and in Slovenia and Hungary in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

Ceku is reportedly viewed as a folk hero to many ethnic Albanians, and his extradition to Serbia would likely cause friction between the ethnic Albanian majority and Serbian minority populations in Kosovo.

Ceku said, "My extradition would weigh heavily on ethnic relations in Kosovo, which are already very tense."

For more information, please see:

NY Times - Bulgarian Court Frees Former Kosovo Leader - 26 June 2009

AFP - Bulgaria releases ex-Kosovo PM Agim Ceku: court - 25 June 2009

Amnesty International - Bulgaria: Promptly proceed with extradition of Agim Ceku - 25 June 2009

The Sofia Echo - Bulgarian court releases Ceku from custody - 25 June 2009

NY Times - Kosovo Ex-Prime Minister Arrested on War Crimes - 24 June 2009

Spanish Legislature: No More Universal Jurisdiction for Crusading Human Rights Judges

2009-06-26T21:39:39-04:00

By Elizabeth A. Conger,
Impunity Watch Reporter

Photo: Spain's National Criminal Court [Source: www.audiencianacional.es]

MADRID, Spain - The lower house of the Spanish Parliament voted Thursday to change a law which has allowed Spanish judges "universal jurisdiction." Universal jurisdiction allowed Spanish judges the authority to indict individuals for crimes of genocide, terrorism and torture regardless of where the crimes took place.

Currently there are thirteen international cases under investigation by Spain's National Criminal Court. Among the cases being investigated are alleged abuses in Gaza, Tibet and Guantánamo. Cases which are already in progress will be "grandfathered" in under the new law.

The new law, which is expected to pass quickly in Spain's Senate, still allows a wide array of cases to be brought before the Court. However, the law now requires that each case which occurs overseas to either involve a Spanish citizen, or have some other clear link to Spain.

Spain's move away from universal jurisdiction mirrors an international legal trend, as France, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have also curtailed their jurisdictional reach. Legal experts have speculated that this trend may ultimately provide the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague with wider latitude of action.

Photo: Judge Baltasar Garzón [Source: AFP]

Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association in London, said the concept of universal jurisdiction has not been eliminated by the move, but represents a shift from the absolute concept once espoused by Spain, to a more conditional understanding. He said, "This doesn't eliminate the concept of universal jurisdiction, required under the Geneva Convention, but it is evolving with provisions. If every state fully pursued absolute universal jurisdiction this would be very chaotic...and might weaken international law, including the role of the ICC."

To date, only one conviction has been secured by the Court. However, many argue that with or without convictions the Court has shed light on human rights violations, and has prompted other states to take action against offenders. In one of the Court's most famous proceedings, Judge Baltasar Garzón's attempted to extradite Chile's Augusto Pinochet in 1998. Although the extradition was denied, the proceedings helped to strip Pinochet of his political prestige.

Laura Gonzalez Vera, whose husband was murdered by Pinochet's secret police, said, "For me, the Pinochet case was a triumph of justice - together with Nuremberg, it was the most important international prosecution of the past 100 years."

Photo: Laura Gonzalez Vera [Source: BBC]

Human rights organizations have viewed the move as a step backwards, and a serious obstacle to victims seeking justice. In a joint press release, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UGT trade union responded, "Spain is more concerned with not offending certain powerful governments than with ending the impunity enjoyed by criminals."

For more information, please see:

Financial Times - Spain curbs reach of justice - 26 June 2009

BBC - Spain reins in crusading judges - 25 June 2009

CS Monitor - Global reach of Spain's courts curtailed - 25 June 2009