PART I : STATE VIOLENCE IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
1. General Background
While he was in power from the early 1990s to 5 October 2000, Slobodan Milosevic used the law enforcement agencies (police administration) as one of his main weapons against political opponents and, in particular, in "resolving" ethnic relations. During this period, the organization of the police force paralled that of the armed forces and it was provided with the most up-to-date equipment and weapons: armored vehicles, water cannons, poisonous substances, rubber and live ammunition, truncheons, etc.). Much use of these was made during the demonstrations organized by opposition parties. The HLC has documented and reported in its publications cases of police brutality against demonstrators and citizens, political activists as well as journalists covering the protests1. Police officers arbitrarily detained and arrested people, thus violating their right to human dignity and physical integrity, freedom of political organization and public assembly, and other human rights.
Police repression against ethnic minorities, especially Kosovo Albanians and Bosnians in the Sandjak region, intensified in 1993 and 1994. The actions were of an organized nature and included arbitrary house searches and detention of a massive number of people, their physical and mental abuse, and their subjection to degrading treatment on ethnic grounds. The common denominator in all these cases was the indifference demonstrated by the institutions of the state, which failed to take any action whatsoever either against those who gave the orders or those who carried them out.
In 1995 and 1996, the HLC found that the police also resorted to brutality in the course of routine policing and irrespective of their victims' ethnicity or political affiliation. The state of human rights in Serbia and Montenegro, especially with regard to the right to life and freedom from torture, took a drastic turn for the worse in 1999. With the start of the NATO bombing in March that year, the HLC registered numerous cases of police and paramilitaries killing Kosovo Albanian civilians, or unlawfully detaining them after which all trace of them was lost. Albanians in prisons across Kosovo were severely abused, as were also those who were detained during the NATO bombing (1,500) and those transferred from Kosovo to prisons in Serbia after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement on 12 June 1999 when Serbian security forces withdrew from Kosovo. In the course of 2000, the police launched a major operation against members of the Otpor (Resistance) Movement2. This crackdown included unlawful arrests, search and seizures, beatings and torture. The authorities first refused to register the organization, claiming that it was working "for the forcible overthrow of the constitutional order." The operation against Otpor was conducted throughout the territory of Serbia, with top officials giving orders for actions that constituted violation of human rights. With no probable cause, Otpor activists, mainly young people, were taken to police stations where they were detained for varying periods of time, photographed and fingerprinted with files opened on them.
In April 2004, the HLC issued a public protest against the appointment of Zvezdan Radojkovic as Chief Police officer in Panc evo after he had been found guilty of interrogating Otpor members without legal grounds during 2000.3 The greatest threat to human rights in Serbia, including the right to freedom from torture, comes from the fact that the Special Police Forces (PJP), a unit organized along military lines whose members were implicated in the armed conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, remains a part of the police force. Following the overthrow of Milosevic in October 2000, the PJP was renamed and is now known as the Gendarmerie. But it retained its organizational and personnel structure, including its commanding officer, General Goran "Guri" Radosavljevic . Gendarmerie is a specialized unit within the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia. It has competency over combating terrorism, and actions in high-risk situations and state of emergencies.
Recent examples include a basketball game on 4 June 2004 in Vrsac after a fight broke out between two spectators. Members of the Gendarmerie indiscriminately beat spectators with their nightsticks who were not involved in this fight and were seated in a separate section. After this intervention, 16 spectators sought medical assistance, among these was twelve-year-old Goran Radovanovic from Vrsac. He stated on TV B92 that he received several thrashes by nightsticks for no reason, and subsequently he lost consciousness and was hospitalized. The police stated that the incident did not reach an excessful use of force and that the injury was incurred through "being crushed by the movements of the crowd".
Serbia has had two governments since October 2000. The first took office in January 2001 and was headed by Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic until his assassination on 12 March 2003. Zoran -ivkovic took over until March 2004 when the new government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was installed as the result of the early parliamentary election. After the fall of Milosevic , sharp divisions and antagonism became evident within the bloc that had opposed him. Two different political groupings emerged: one that supported Djindjic and another that favored Kostunica. All this led to a slowing down of the process of social reform and of international integration and, hence, of the development of democratic institutions and mechanisms for the protection of human rights.
2. Right to Life
The Charter on Human and Minority Rights of Serbia and Montenegro, and the constitutions of the two republics making up the state-union (Article 14, para. 1, Serbian Constitution; Article 21, para. 1, Montenegrin Constitution) guarantee the inviolability of human life as a fundamental human right.
The Ristic Case
According to the official report, Milan Ristic (20), a student from sabac, committed suicide on 13 February 1995 by leaping from the roof of an apartment building. Suspecting that their son had been murdered, his parents filed a criminal complaint against three police officers with the sabac Public Prosecutor's Office. The parents maintained that these officers had detained their son in the mistaken belief that he was a person for whom an arrest warrant had been issued, that they beat him and inflicted a hard blow to his head behind the left ear, most probably with the butt of a pistol or rifle, and that this injury was the cause of death. According to the parents, the officers then broke their son's thighbones, both at the same level, in an attempt to substantiate their claim that the young man had jumped to his death from the roof. After exhausting all available domestic legal remedy, the parents decided to turn to the UN Committee against Torture. On their behalf, the HLC submitted an application on 22 July 1998, asking the Committee to determine whether the competent Yugoslav authorities had failed to conduct an impartial investigation, and thereby deprived the plaintiffs of their right to compensation. In its decision of May 2001,4 the Committee found Yugoslavia in violation of its obligations under Articles 12 and 13 of the Convention and called on it to conduct without delay another investigation into the death of Milan Ristic, and report back to it on the findings. In spite of numerous requests by the Ristic s and the HLC, the Serbian and state-union authorities failed to comply with the Committee's decision for more than two years. In September 2003, the then Serbian Justice Minister, Vladan Batic , wrote to the Serbian Public Prosecutor with regard to this case, pointing out that the Committee's decision was legally binding. The District Prosecutor on 4 November 2003 instructed the investigating judge of the sabac District Court to have the remains of Milan Ristic exhumed for another autopsy, which was done on 20 April 2004, three years after the Committee handed down its decision. The investigating judge is currently awaiting the new autopsy report.
The Death of Dejan Petrovic
Dejan Petrovic (29) of Belgrade was taken by police from his parents' apartment at 10 p.m. on 16 January 2002 to the local police station on suspicion of theft. The next day the police told his parents that Dejan had jumped from a second-floor window at the station, and that he was hospitalized at the Emergency Treatment Center.
A drug addict, Petrovic was in a detoxification program, and his parents closely monitored his movements, especially in the period immediately preceding his detention. On the evening in question, he left the apartment to walk his girlfriend home and was absent from 6.50 to 7.20 p.m. At the station, Dejan Petrovic spent the night in a holding cell. At about 9 a.m. the next day, three police inspectors, Nesic , Kojic and a blonde woman who did not give her name, came to the family's apartment with a warrant to search Dejan's room. When they found nothing, Inspector Kojic told his colleagues to bring Dejan to the apartment. Mr. Petrovic, who had warned the police that his son was in therapy when they came for him the day before, recounted to the HLC what happened next: "They brought Dejan in with his hands cuffed. His lips were blue, as if something wasn't right. I didn't notice any injuries on his face. However, Dejan didn't say a word the whole time. They searched the room again in his presence and asked him where the money was, adding that they would let him go as soon as he told them. When Dejan replied he didn't know, Kojic said, 'Let's go.' As they were leading him out, Dejan said, 'Mom, I didn't do anything. Get me a lawyer.' That was about half past ten." At noon that day, Mr. and Mrs. Petrovic received a phone call from the police station and were told their son had jumped from a second-floor window and was at the Emergency Treatment Center. At the Center, medical staff told them an unidentified person had been admitted and, after seeing him, the parents identified him as their son. From the Center, they went to the police station. In his account, Mr. Petrovic said: "My wife and I went to the police station in Bo-idara Ad-ije Street and up to the second floor. We heard a policeman say, 'These are Dejan's parents. Keep your mouths shut.' The inspectors said they had treated Dejan correctly and that he jumped out the window when he was alone in the room. I said it was impossible for a young man who was 180 centimeters tall to jump through the one-by-one meter double window. To that, one of them said, 'What? Do you think we threw him out?' I said we would see about that and insisted that they show us the room in which Dejan was held. They said this was not possible until the investigating judge finished with the scene." Mr. Petrovic was eventually able to see the room and window from which his soon allegedly jumped: "An Inspector Kocic was there. It was a small room, four meters by four, with an easy chair standing near the window. According to Kocic , Dejan made a running start, jumped on the chair and out the window. I asked how he knew that when he was not present; he replied that he assumed that was the way it happened." Dejan Petrovic was in a coma for two weeks and was unable to speak when he regained consciousness. For a month, doctors did everything they could to save Petrovic's life, but his injuries proved fatal: his spleen and gall bladder were ruptured, his liver and pancreas were severely damaged, all his left ribs and left femur fractured, and he had a large hematoma on his head. Dejan Petrovic died at the Center on 15 February. Shortly after their son's alleged suicide attempt, his parents retained an attorney who filed a criminal complaint against the police. For some reason, the attorney avoided all contact with the Petrovic s following their son's death. A report by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Belgrade Police Department dated 17 January 2002 states that Dejan Petrovic , "at a time when his hands were handcuffed behind his back, made a running start and jumped through a double window measuring 50 x 55 cm on the inside and 40 x 45 cm on the outside, and at a height of about one meter from the floor." The report also says "Inspector Kocic was the first to enter office No. 24 on the second floor in which the incident in question occurred, followed by Dejan Petrovic and, after him, Inspectors Sladjan Kostic and Natasa Kovac evic . Immediately upon entering, Petrovic made a running start and, breaking the inside and outside panes, leaped into the yard outside the building." This report is inconsistent with what Inspector Kocic told Mr. Petrovic when he spoke with him at the police station; namely that Dejan was alone in the room when he allegedly jumped. Three days after Dejan Petrovic 's death, an autopsy was performed at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. The pathologists established that death was due to violence and caused by damage to vital brain centers and ensuing complications. They also found that the brain damage, fractures and other internal and external injuries Dejan had sustained were due to blunt force trauma. A criminal complaint was first filed with the Third Municipal Prosecutor's Office and, in April 2002, the District Prosecutor's Office. However, in spite of the evidence and grounds to believe that Dejan Petrovic was the victim of torture by police, the prosecutor has not to date asked for an investigation. But nor has he dismissed the complaint as unfounded, which would have enabled the parents to proceed as private prosecutors. At the request of the HLC, the medical records were transferred to the Belgrade Institute of Forensic Medicine on 12 September 2003 for an expert opinion on the injuries sustained by the deceased Petrovic . The findings were not known at the time of writing.
The Milan Jezdovic Case
At 8 p.m. on 4 December 2003, police inspectors "Lambe," Karajovic, Kostic, "Mic a" and others stormed into the Belgrade apartment rented by Milan Jezdovic and his friends. The officers, from Division 4 of the Belgrade Police Department, first handcuffed Milan Tomovic and his girlfriend Milica Babin and, without a warrant, searched the apartment. They found one gram of heroin and a pistol. They pulled Milica Babin's hair and hurled sexual insults at her.
Jezdovic and his friends were ordered to lie face down on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs while the apartment was searched, and were then driven to the Belgrade Police Department and put into a room where they were beaten, their legs bound together with tape, and plastic bags were pulled over their heads. Radoje Tomovic testified to the HLC about the torture he and his friends were subjected to: "They took us out one by one and shouts and loud noises were heard - 'You're suffocating me, suffocating me!' The police taped their legs together so that they couldn't struggle. There were cries, screams, and lots of noise. I saw them [police] with the bags. They threatened us, saying we should confess or we would die there. 'We're Division 4, you've heard of us. You've come to hell!' I saw them bring out the mangled Draskovic, with blood running from his nose and unable to stand on his feet. I saw that his shoes had been taken off, and the tape was around his legs. I saw Inspector Pesic cutting the tape to free his legs. Then they took Novakovic and after him Jezdovic. I never saw him again after that. I heard only screams and cries for help." Dejan Novakovic described the same event to the HLC: "They suffocated me with the bag, hit me with nightsticks all over the body. They put towels over my knees and hit me on them and the shins with nightsticks. When they took me out of that room they put me together with Tomovic and Aleksandar "Buca" Draskovic. They let me go about 1.40 a.m. and kept the others. Draskovic was all beaten up, bleeding from the nose and with clotted blood on his face. He asked for some water but they didn't give him any. They told him he could die. Tomovic was beaten savagely." Milan Jezdovic died at the Police Department. According to the autopsy report, the immediate cause was a "sudden irregularity in the work of the heart," and the abrasions and bruises on his body were inflicted with a blunt instrument. A toxicological test revealed the presence of a narcotic drug in his blood. The police stated that Jezdovic died of a heart attack.
Death Penalty
The Charter on Human and Minority Rights explicitly prohibits capital punishment,5 while the republican constitutions of Serbia and Montenegro allow it only in exceptional cases. The process of abolishing the death penalty started in June 2001 when Yugoslavia ratified the II Optional Protocol to the Covenant.6 This was followed by amendment of the Yugoslav Criminal Code (Sl. list SRJ No. 61/01), and its Serbian and Montenegrin counterparts (Sl. glasnik RS 10/02; Sl. list RCG No. 30/02). No death sentences have been handed down in either Serbia or Montenegro since 2002. Capital punishment has effectively been replaced with the maximum term of imprisonment of 40 years.
Notes:
1 Spotlight On: Political Use of Police Violence During the 1996-1997 Protests in Serbia, HLC, 1997; Law Enforcement Abuses, HLC, 1997; Human Rights 1991-1995, HLC, 1997; Police Crackdown on Otpor, HLC, 2001
2 In 2001 HLC published "Police Crackdown on Otpor"
3 Judgment No. 2173/2000, 20 April 2001, Municipal Court, Pancevo.
4 Communication No 113/1998: Yugoslavia 11/05/2001; CAT/C/26/D/113/1998 (Jurisprudence).
5 Art. 11, Charter on Human and Minority Rights.
6 Sl. List SRJ (Official Gazette) - International Treaties No. 4/01.
(pdf* format - 682.5 KB)