THE ABDUCTION AND MURDER OF PETRIJA PILJEVIĆ 49 According to a witness, Petrija Piljević was abducted from in front of her apartment in Prishtinë/Priština on 28 June 1999, by three armed men in KLA uniform; a Kosovo Serb neighbour who attempted to help her was also abducted. They were initially held in another apartment in the same building. The witness and neighbours called a KFOR patrol to the scene, but unable to speak English, they could not explain the situation to the soldiers. Instead a Kosovo Albanian neighbour spoke to the KFOR patrol leader, and subsequently the patrol left without taking any action. Shortly after Petrija Piljević and her neighbour were taken outside by the men in KLA uniform and put in a car. “One gunshot was heard shortly thereafter and the car was then driven in an unknown direction. Another gunshot was heard immediately after the car left the scene. Neither victim has been seen alive since that time”. In their consideration of the complaint, the HRAP reviewed the investigative case-file and other material provided, which UNMIK had asked should remain confidential, on the basis that the investigation was still ongoing. They found that on 18 August 1999, a complaint by D.P. was sent from the Serbian Ministry of Interior to KFOR, who forwarded it to UNMIK police, who registered the case on 16 September 1999. In early 2000, one of D.P.’s relatives was interviewed by regional police; and the case was subsequently was sent to the CCIU. In July 2000, the CCIU was informed that D.P would make a statement, and in August 2000 Kosovo: UNMIK Legacy The Failure to Deliver Justice and Reparations to the Relatives of the Abducted Amnesty International August 2013 Index: EUR 70/009/2013 16 16 the case was assigned to an investigator. Sometime later it was reviewed and closed by another investigator. The file was then passed back to the first investigator at the end of 2000, with a note that Petrija Piljević’s body had been found and identified. The file then went to the Head of the CCIU Team for assessment, and was returned to the first investigator in May 2001: he took no action, as he was about to leave UNMIK. The case was then given to a new team leader, for another assessment. In a review, dated 26 June 2001, a CCIU investigator expressed his surprise at “how little had been done in the case and listed the minimum set of actions to undertake”. On 21 August 2001, a letter was sent on behalf of D.P. asking for news of progress; there was no reference to any reply in the file. D.P. was eventually interviewed in October 2001. The two eye-witnesses were each interviewed three times, in 2001 – 2003, and another new witness, named by an eye-witness was interviewed in March 2003. Finally in May and June 2003, the CCIU wrote to the Serbian authorities in relation to the identification of potential witnesses now living in Serbia. The CCIU then closed the file, and although the case was reactivated sometime after 2003, there was no documentation of any further investigation until October 2008, when the WCIU submitted a “case summary” to the UNMIK Department of Justice, proposing that the case be handed over to the Serbian authorities, as the witnesses were living in Serbia. The Panel considered that there had been an unreasonable delay between September 1999 and October 2001 in interviewing D.P, and that investigators had failed to follow up on the identity and details of one of the suspected perpetrators, which had been provided by an eye witness, who saw the man in 2001. The panel found a violation under Article 2 ECHR on the basis that there had been “significant omissions throughout the investigation, especially at its initial stage”, and that “not all reasonable steps to identify the perpetrators and to bring them to justice were taken by UNMIK”. They also found that UNMIK had failed in their obligation to inform D.P. about the progress of the investigation, especially the decision to suspend it in 2003. 3.2 COMPLAINTS UNDER ARTICLE 3 In each of the cases summarised below, in addition to finding a violation of Article 2, the HRAP also ruled admissible complaints by the relatives of the missing person that UNMIK had violated their rights under Article 3 of the ECHR “to be free from inhuman treatment, specifically the right to be free from the mental pain and suffering caused by the disappearance [sic] of a relative”. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a state’s continued failure to investigate cases of persons missing following a military intervention, during which many persons were killed or taken prisoner and where the area was subsequently sealed off and became inaccessible to the relatives, resulted in a continuing violation of the prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment set out in Article 3 of the ECHR. The Court has stated that “the silence of the authorities of the respondent State in the face of the real concerns of the relatives of the missing persons attained a level of severity which can only be categorised as inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3”. 50 The Kosovo: UNMIK Legacy The Failure to Deliver Justice and Reparations to the Relatives of the Abducted Index: EUR 70/009/2013 Amnesty International August 2013 17 Human Rights Committee has also recognized that the “anguish and stress” suffered by a family member of a victim of enforced disappearance can amount to a violation of Article 7 of the ICCPR which prohibits torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. 51 This has also been recognized as a violation that continues until an effective investigation is carried out.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 08:24:58 +0000
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