PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s parliament on Thursday licensed a invoice on leasing one of the most nation’s jail house to Denmark, following an settlement to lend a hand the Scandinavian nation take care of its overcrowded jail device.
Underneath the deal, signed in 2022, Danish government would ship foreigners convicted in Denmark to serve time in Kosovo. Danish nationals can be excluded, as would the ones convicted of terrorism or warfare crimes, in addition to mentally in poor health prisoners.
Kosovo’s lawmakers voted 86-7, and not using a abstentions, in choose of the invoice, which provides Denmark the usage of 300 cells on the jail within the the city of Gjilan, south of the capital of Pristina, for 10 years.
The invoice nonetheless must be signed by way of Kosovo’s president to turn into regulation. It may be applied as soon as it’s revealed within the respectable gazette.
It remained unclear when Denmark, which agreed to pay Kosovo 210 million euros ($227 million) for the usage of the jail house, would get started sending convicts to Kosovo.
The settlement additionally stipulates that the convicts despatched to Kosovo should serve their time right here below the similar stipulations as in a jail in Denmark, and based on Denmark’s global tasks.
The deal additionally supplies for the potential of deporting foreigners immediately to their house nations after the top in their sentence in Kosovo.
Kosovo government have stated they’ll spend the cash from Denmark on bettering the Balkan nation’s correctional establishments, in keeping with the Justice Ministry, and in addition on renewable power initiatives.
Kosovo’s lawmakers didn’t go an previous draft of the invoice right through a consultation ultimate week, and then the federal government presented a brand new draft. A part of the opposition was once now not in choose of the sooner draft, regardless that no causes have been made public. It wanted a minimum of 80 votes in choose, or two thirds of the 120-seat parliament, to go.
Denmark’s Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard referred to as Thursday’s vote by way of Kosovo’s parliament “in point of fact excellent information.”
He stated in a commentary that sending convicts to Kosovo “will lend a hand getting our hard-pressed jail device again into steadiness.”
“On the identical time, it sends a transparent sign to overseas criminals that their long term isn’t in Denmark, and subsequently they will have to now not serve time right here both,” Hummelgaard added.
A Danish warden will run the power in Kosovo, with the assistance of native jail group of workers.
Kosovo’s jail device has the capability to deal with as much as 2,800 prisoners. It was once now not right away imaginable to determine the present choice of unoccupied cells.
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Semini reported from Tirana, Albania. Related Press creator Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this document.
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