CoE gains access to NATO-run prison in Kosovo

SERBIANNA (USA), July 19, 2006 6:30 AM

STRASBOURG, France-The Council of Europe said Wednesday that NATO gave the human rights watchdog's inspectors permission to visit a detention facility in Kosovo run by the military alliance's peacekeeping force.

The decision ends a long-standing dispute between both organizations.

The council had been trying to reach agreement with NATO for years to inspect a KFOR-run prison at Camp Bondsteel, the only detention facility in Europe where the watchdog's inspectors have not had unlimited access. The NATO-led peacekeeping force is known as KFOR.

Camp Bondsteel will be inspected by the council's anti-torture committee, which visits prisons, juvenile detention centers, holding camps for immigrants and other detention centers in the council's 46 member states and examines the treatment of detainees.

"The inspection can happen any time from now," said Council of Europe spokesman Matjaz Gruden, adding that the anti-torture committee will not make the inspection date public.

Under a legally binding European human rights treaty, the committee has unlimited access to places of detention and the right to move inside such places without restriction.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted a Serb crackdown on the province's majority ethnic Albanian community.

The Council of Europe has unlimited access to all prisons run by the U.N. mission in Kosovo. NATO's permission for the council to access Camp Bondsteel comes at a time when various European countries and institutions are investigating reports of secret CIA prisons on European territory.

"We have succeeded in resolving a long-standing anomaly in the human rights enforcement system in Europe. This arrangement will help us to ensure that there are no exceptions to the absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment throughout the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, Council of Europe chairman Terry Davis said.

Camp Bondsteel is the main U.S. camp in Kosovo. NATO insists no prisoners are being held there.