Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told In prison, the accused was forced to sign a document, which identified him as member of the UCK in the "operational zone no.76". When he signed the document, he was only shown its lower margin as the text was covered. OSCE-KVM is in possession of a copy of the "certificate". The document is signed by a "commander" with a scribble, and names the accused as member of the UCK since 20 January 1998 (when he was working for the tobacco company and the UCK [was] a little known fringe group in Kosovo). This document was found to be a falsification by the defence attorney, as the Albanian text contained syntax and spelling mistakes, which only a non-native speaker would make. 34 Ultimately, the OSCE-KVM found that the material evidence and even some of the witness testimonies presented during the trials were, per se, of little probative value, to the point where they were sometimes ignored by the prosecution when it summed up its case. In general, the contribution of witnesses in the trials tended to be inconclusive, to the point of being - in the words of one OSCE-KVM trial monitor - "farcical". Witnesses who attended at a trial were either too intimidated to make substantial contributions, or gave testimony entirely irrelevant to the question of 35 whether the accused was guilty with regard to a specific accusation. Moreover, the Serbian police abused the obligatory court orders for criminal trial witnesses as a pretext to engage in random village searches, often accompanied by harassment, beatings and intimidation. 36 Trials in absentia According to international standards, trials of persons in absentia are only to take place as a matter of exception, as they inherently undermine the defendant's right to the fullest guaranteess of due process. In Kosovo, most trials included individuals tried in absentia, to the point that, in some cases, they outnumbered the accused who were present. In such trials, the evidence presented against the absent accused was often even less substantial than that presented against the detained individuals, yet most of the former were convicted and sentenced regularly to longer terms of imprisonment. In the "Urosevac group" trial, for example, the majority of the accused (17 out of 26) were not present during the trial. The assigned (Serb) attorneys claimed that the accused had not been duly summoned to court. They stressed that the court had not mentioned anything about the 17 indicted persons who were tried in their absence and that consequently no proof of their guilt was given. In the "Pristina group" trial, out of eight defendants, four were absent and given longer sentences than those present during the trial. Judgements and sentences Presumption of innocence The presumption of innocence places the burden of proof on the prosecution. It is enshrined in human rights standards which state that anyone charged with a criminal offence has "the right to be presumed http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch10.htm (11 of 18)12/5/2003 11:52:22 AM