Albania Ratifies Deal for Hague Convicts

07 November 2008 Tirana – The Albanian parliament has ratified an agreement with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia accepting to take in convicted war criminals.

The agreement was reached in September during a ceremony held in The Hague, by Albanian ambassador Roland Bimo and Hans Holthuis, the United Nations tribunal’s Registrar.

With this agreement Albania becomes the seventeenth country to allow people convicted by the Tribunal to serve their sentences elsewhere. Poland signed the same agreement only the day before.

Other countries that have previously signed this agreement are: Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, United Kingdom, Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Estonia and Slovakia.
 
To date, 53 persons convicted by the Tribunal have either served or are serving their sentence in one of the states. Three convicts are awaiting transfer to one of the states to serve their sentence.
 
Serbia sent a protest note to the UN’s war crimes tribunal at The Hague after its decision to include Albania on the list of host countries for jailed convicts, expressing concern regarding over the country’s human rights and the state of its prisons.