Kosovo student leader sentenced to 15 years imprisonment
NIS, Yugoslavia, March 13 (AFP) - A Kosovo Albanian student leader was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges after he refused to defend himself before a Serb court.The court in the southern Serbian town of Nis issued the verdict after only two days of hearings in the trial of Albin Kurti, who as leader of the Kosovo Albanians Independent Student Union led street protests against Serbian rule in his home province in 1997 and 1998.
He was arrested by Serb police during last year's NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, and accused of being a member of a "terrorist group", the term used by Belgrade for separatist guerrilla movement the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Kurti, who worked as an assistant to KLA spokesman Adem Demaci, made a defiant statement at the opening of the trial on Thursday, accusing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime of "fascism".
He refused to mount a defence or respond to prosecution questions, saying he did not recognise the court's legitimacy.
"This court has nothing to do with truth and justice, it serves the policies of Milosevic's regime which has kept Kosovo under occupation," he said.
The court-appointed defence lawyer, Branislav Ciric, said he would appeal the verdict despite Kurti's objections.
The prosecutor also said Kurti "organised first-aid courses" among Kosovo's Albanian students with the purpose of "assisting wounded KLA members and donating blood."
Ahead of Monday's verdict, Kurti again rejected offering a defence and said: "The defence lawyer, the prosecutor and the court are all the same."
Kurti, wearing civilian clothes and bearing no visible signs of physical mistreatment, reacted calmly to the verdict.
At the start of the trial he had said: "It is not important for me whether you sentence me or for how long."
"Everything I did, I did voluntarily, with dignity and I am proud of it and would do it again."
The trial was attended by the representatives of the UN Human Rights office in Belgrade, Human Rights Watch and non-government Belgrade groups the Humanitarian Law Center and the Committee of Jurists.
They declined to comment on the sentence.
Kurti is one of about 1,300 Kosovo Albanians still held in Serbia on terrorism charges, according to the Humanitarian Law Center.
In December, ethnic Albanian human rights activist Flora Brovina was sentenced to 12 years in prison for "terrorist activities" in a trial condemned by the United States and international human rights groups.
More than 400 Albanians have been released since mid-June, when Belgrade transferred about 2,050 prisoners from Kosovo as it withdrew from the southern province in the face of NATO air attacks, the International Committee for the Red Cross said.
