76 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 judges and prosecutors in humanitarian law. international No further progress was reported on the whereabouts of three ethnic Albanians – Sultan Memeti, Hajredin Halimi and Ruzdi Veliu – who are believed to have been “disappeared” by the Macedonian authorities during the 2001 internal conflict. Armed opposition groups Update to AI Index: EUR 01/012/2005 and AI Index: EUR 01/007/2006 Ethnic Albanians Agim Krasniqi and Shekat Ramadani were convicted of kidnapping and causing general danger, and sentenced in absentia to 18 month’s imprisonment on 3 January, for the attempted kidnapping in October 2004 of Sheval Muaremi during a period when Agim Krasniqi, a former NLA leader had taken control of the Skopje suburb of Kondovo, threatening to bomb the capital. On 16 February Agim Krasniqi and other members of the Kondovo group were acquitted of charges related to their control of Kondovo. Lawyers for Albanian journalists Bujar and Rajmonda Malecka, charged with terrorism and sentenced in 2005 to five years’ imprisonment for possession of a video of Agim Krasniqi and other members of the Kondovo group apparently conducting military exercises, stated that they would demand a retrial; they had already been released. Counter-terrorism (Update to AI Index: EUR 01/017/2006, EUR 01/001/2007, see also Albania entry) On 18 May 2007 a Macedonian parliamentary committee, in a closed hearing of written statements by the Ministry of the Interior and on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, concluded that the security services had not overstepped their powers in relation to his detention.,. The authorities had allegedly held him for 23 days in 2003 in a Skopje hotel, before Amnesty International rendering him to the US authorities at Skopje airport, from where he was flown to Afghanistan. The committee chair noted that unless provided with “strong evidence” to the contrary, the committee would continue to believe the Ministry, but were ready to cooperate with the investigations conducted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In June a report by the PACE concluded that the Macedonian authorities’ account had become “utterly untenable”, and urged the authorities at the highest level to cooperate in establishing the truth about the rendition of Khaled ElMasri. Torture, ill-treatment and possible extra-judicial execution In January 2007 the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Macedonia initiated a project which aimed to provide free legal assistance and representation to alleged victims of torture and ill-treatment. Cases of torture, ill-treatment and a death in custody were reported in which the Internal Control and Professional Standards Sector of the Ministry of the Interior had failed to conduct investigations according to internal procedures, domestic law, and international standards. In June NGOs raised concerns that the draft Law on the Public Prosecution Office failed to prescribe time-limits within which investigations, including into alleged torture and ill-treatment, should be conducted and the victims informed of the outcome. On 15 February, the European Court of Human Rights held in the case of Pejrušan Jašar, a Macedonian national of Romani ethnic origin from Štip, that that there has been a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right not to be subjected to torture or other illtreatment) due to the failure of the authorities to conduct an effective investigation into the applicant’s allegations. Pejrušan Jašar alleged that he had been beaten during his detention in police custody in 1998, and that the authorities had failed to carry out an investigation into his complaint of ill-treatment. Macedonia AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007