Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 Seven years after investigations opened, indictments had still not been issued in connection with the transfer in 1999 of the bodies of ethnic Albanians in refrigerated trucks to Serbia. On 4 June exhumations commenced at the instigation of the war crimes prosecutor at the alleged site of a mass grave in a quarry on the border with Kosovo thought to contain up to 500 bodies reportedly buried in 1999; no bodies were found. Political killings (Update to AI Index: EUR 01/007/2005) On 16 February Milorad “Legija” LukovićUlemek and Radomir Marković were convicted in a retrial and again sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment each for the 1999 assassination attempt on former foreign minister Vuk Drasković. On 23 May Milorad “Legija” Luković-Ulemek and Žveždan Jovanović were convicted and sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment in prison for their respective roles in the murder of former president Zoran Djindić. Ten others were convicted (five in absentia) and sentenced to between eight and 37 years imprisonment. During the 41-month trial several witnesses had been killed and both judges in the case threatened. Discrimination against minorities Between January and April the NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights documented 61 ethnically and religiously motivated incidents, including cases of “hatespeech”against Albanians, Croats, Bosniaks, Hungarians, Roma, Ruthenians and Vlachs, ranging from attacks with explosive devices to verbal abuse by fans at football matches. Law enforcement officers often failed to bring perpetrators to justice: Zivota Milanovic, a member of the Hindu religious community in Jagodina, who had been assaulted five times since 2001, was on 29 June stabbed in the stomach, arms and legs after opening his door to his assailant who falsely claimed to be a police officer. Amnesty International 107 In June, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) urged Serbia to address inadequate health-care services for women, especially for Roma and rural women, including access to information and counselling on family planning. CEDAW also noted that illiteracy rates were “alarmingly high” and urged the authorities to pay “special attention … to achieving equal access [to education] for marginalized groups of women and girls, in particular of the Roma minority”. UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, reported that “Over 80 per cent of Roma children living in Roma settlements are poor and practically all indicators point to their unacceptable deprivation and multidimensional discrimination”. Detentions in counter-terrorism operations (Update to AI Index EUR 01/001/2007). In 18 March four men believed to be of the Wahhabi faith from Novi Pazar were arrested on suspicion of allegedly planning terrorist operations and charged with conspiring against Serbia’s security and constitutional order; a fifth man Nedžad Memić fled and is still at large. Two other men were later arrested after the discovery of an alleged Wahhabi camp near Sjenica in mid-March. Another man, Ismail Prentic, was killed in a similar raid in the village of Donja Trnava near Novi Pazar. Another three men were arrested in June. AI was concerned about the arrest and subsequent detention of Bekto Memić, the father of Nedžad Memić. Initially arrested on 17 March in connection with the search for his son, he was released seven days later. Aged 68 and in poor health, he was again arrested on 13 April at a clinic in Novi Pazar where he was receiving treatment. According to his family he was ill-treated on the journey to the hospital wing of Belgrade central prison, where he has been held in investigative detention on charges of alleged terrorism and the unlawful possession of weapons. AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007