Dignity questions safety of Denmark’s Kosovo prison deal

Human rights organisation Dignity says it is not confident about Denmark’s planned prison cooperation with Kosovo after two Kosovar officers in training were charged with assaulting an inmate at Vestre Prison, DR reports. Both officers deny the charges.

Denmark’s plan is to rent 300 prison places in Gjilan prison in south-eastern Kosovo for foreign nationals sentenced to expulsion. The political agreement was reached in 2021, and a treaty formalising it was signed in 2022 by then Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup.

Therese Rytter, Dignity’s legal director, said the case was worrying because the Kosovar officers are being trained in Danish prison practices. She said she feared that treatment which might violate Danish rules could continue in Kosovo’s prison units.

Rytter has been a member and vice-president of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture for the past 12 years. She cited the committee’s 2020 report, which found credible allegations of physical abuse by prison officers in three of the four prisons it visited in Kosovo. The report described slaps, punches and kicks, including incidents after inmates had been restrained and handcuffed.

The United Nations Committee against Torture has previously urged the Danish government to abandon the prison plan. Under the agreement, inmates sent to Kosovo are to serve their Danish sentences under conditions broadly equivalent to those in Danish prisons, with Denmark’s international obligations upheld, Danmarks Fængsler says.

Construction delays mean the prison places are not expected to be ready before late 2027, and could open in early 2028, Justice Minister Nicolai Wammen said in a written statement in September.

About 200 Kosovar prison officers are due to receive training in Danish rules, conflict management and prison practices. The programme includes three months of classroom instruction and three months of work experience in Danish prisons. Danmarks Fængsler is reviewing the training following the case, its director Ina Eliasen said.

Eliasen called the allegations extremely serious and said Danmarks Fængsler reported them immediately. The agency will also consider how to supervise operations in Kosovo over the longer term. She said she was confident in the continued cooperation, noting that Kosovar authorities were taking the case seriously and that other Kosovar officers had worked well with the Danish service.

Rytter said training was important but could not guarantee that rules would not be broken once Gjilan prison opens. She said Kosovar officers have a very different background from Danish officers.