Nikolic urges for releasing Ivanovic, Serbs pending verdict

BELGRADE - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic Wednesday called for releasing Citizens' Initiative 'Freedom, Democracy, Justice' (SDP) leader Oliver Ivanovic and three other Serbs from detention in Kosovska Mitrovica pending a verdict.

Nikolic said that their release pending a verdict would be "a confirmation of respect for basic human rights and impartiality of court proceedings," the president's press office said in a release.

He pointed out that UNMIK had had already conducted proceedings against them, for the same criminal offenses, in 2002, and the court in charge had decided to discontinue the investigation since no evidence had been found to corroborate the accusations.

The president said that prosecution that two witnesses cross-examined in the current trial, Mentor Mehana and Bedzet Ferizi, had confirmed the claims by the defense that the defendants were not guilty of the crimes they had been charged with.

Nikolic said that to keep Ivanovic and the other three men in detention despite the guarantees of the Serbian government that they would be available to judicial authorities at all times before and during the trial was inappropriate and was an abuse of their rights.

He observed that the length of their detention was in direct contradiction to a report of the OSCE Mission calling for ensuring better respect for the right to freedom and for reducing any deprivation of liberty and in particular detention on remand in criminal proceedings to the shortest time possible.

Nikolic said he would continue to follow the trial with great attention in the hope that the law would overpower political motives and that legal security would start being the same for all citizens in Kosovo.

The Serbian president...