2,000 ALBANIANS DETAINED IN SERB PRISONS WITHOUT ANY LEGAL BASIS

PRISTINA, Sept 16 (Hina) - Two-thousand Albanians currently detained in Serbian prisons are detained without any legal basis, Kosovo attorney Teki Bokshi said in Pristina on Thursday. Bokshi has been authorised by the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Right Fund to visit with several Albanian attorneys a number of prisons around Serbia in which abducted or arrested Albanians are detained. "The fact that no court proceedings have been initiated against 2,000 Albanians after five months is the best proof that they are detained without any legal basis," Bokshi said. All prisoners are detained without court rulings despite the June 15 expiry of a 30-day imprisonment deadline, decreed by the Serb police at the time of the state of war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bokshi claims the Albanian prisoners are not prisoners of war, because most of those arrested and abducted are civilians. The attorney is especially concerned with the fate of 900 Albanians gone missing from the Djakovica area. Nothing has been learned about their fate even during the last prison visits. The attorneys and staff of the Humanitarian Right Fund have so far been banned from visiting a prison in Nis. The Serb media recently announced the impending commencement of trials of the arrested Albanians, but gave no other details. According to Albanian sources, prisons around Serbia hold some 7,000 arrested, abducted, or missing Albanians. (hina) ha jn