Justice Ministry Expects Passing Agreement on 300 Danish Cells

Since the vote by the largest opposition PDK is needed for the pre-meditary cell lending agreement in Gjilan, it is said that the possibility of voting this agreement exists. While KMDLNJ says the agreement creates dangerous precedents as Kosovo's Correcting Service and Kosovo prisoners are being damaged.

Political adviser to the Ministry of Justice Alban Muriqi says within months this agreement will go to the Kosovo Assembly for a vote. He believes the agreement will also receive support from opposition parties.

The ratification in the Assembly is now expected. Under the procedures, the issue will take months. Hopefully everything will be fine in The Kosovo Assembly. An internal dialogue has even started on The Commission for Legissation, there were visitings with informationary character from the Danish side. Also, there will be visits Commission for Legislation and Minister there to see closely the commitment of the government or the Danish side to this agreement and all the benefits it will have The corrective service, then the issue of renewable energy ... I believe it is, as it notes an increased mood seeing the benefits of this agreement from both sides”, he said.

MP from the PDK ranks Hajdar Beqa says that, in principle, as a party, they have agreement to support the agreement to rent 300 cells in Kosovo for Danish prisoners.

Beqa, who is also a member of the Commission for Legislation, says that this agreement does not view the state of Kosovo as very successful, since the Danish state has had this offer for many states.

“We will make our contribution as an opposition party, like the PDK in this phase. Actually, we agree to accept that there are 300 prisoners, but just to clarify some issues and not sell it as a economic development Government... In this case, I haven't read the details of the agreement, and we don't want to talk without a parliamentary position, but we agree in principle. We haven't seen it as a lot of success, even though I think we've really been one of the many states that we've been doing. Denmark has offered them something like this and we've taken it as a volunteer case... We'll analyze. The possibility of support is, but we cannot talk at this stage”, Beqa said.

But the two countries' agreement to bring 300 prisoners to Kosovo strongly rejected by Council for Defence Rights and Freedoms of Man (KMDNJ).

The chairman of this council, Behxhet Shala, considers that this agreement has no legal basis, even says it will create inequality.

This agreement currently has no legal basis on Kosovo, therefore, has become all efforts to sell and concreteise as an international agreement. There have been secret and non-transparent talks with Denmark, and they've only served a 200 million-euro outlook for 10 years that they've somehow put the opinion out of the game... This is an exceptionally harmful criminal agreement, this is a racist and criminal agreement, because it is unprecedented how a state budget can be filled with money by importing crime and criminals from another state. It is unrealistic and ridiculous to think that Denmark does not have enough capacity to keep those prisoners, they are condemned, not citizens Denmark is one of the third countries Denmark did not love and could not socialise”, he said.

According to Shala, with such an agreement, Kosovo's Correcting Service and Kosovo prisoners are being damaged.

“is a dangerous precedent and will most often harm the Correcting Service Kosovo is creating two systems for executing criminal sanctions within a state. For some criminals imported from Denmark who will have all the benefits will have status as if they were in Denmark, meanwhile those who are sentenced to Kosovo to be citizens Kosovo, will have much more difficult conditions. Imagine those who were located at the detention centre in Gjilan, 200 and something on their own, they should move to other centres and their family must make extra expenses to go and visit to free the country some criminals”, Shala said.

Kosovo and Denmark signed a letter of sympathy on December 20th 2021, under which 300 prison cells Kosovo to be provided in state exploitation Denmark. For this lending, Kosovo is expected to benefit 210m euros over the next decade.

On the occasion of signing the agreement, Danish Justice Minister Nick Hakkkerup had declared that Denmark's correctional service is overloaded and that the project aims to facilitate the overcrowding of Danish prisons, which has increased 19 percent since 2015.

Such practices have been implemented in European countries even before, including Norway and Belgium, who had rented prison cells in the Netherlands.