Albania becomes latest country to enforce sentences imposed by UN tribunal

TIRANA, Sep 20 – Albania signed an agreement last week to become the latest European country to enforce the sentences imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was set up by the United Nations to deal with the worst war crimes committed in the Balkans in the 1990s.
Anyone convicted by the ICTY and given a jail term can now serve that sentence in an Albanian prison after the agreement was signed in The Hague, the Dutch city where the tribunal is based.
Sixteen other European countries have already signed similar agreements with the ICTY since 1997 – Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Estonia, Slovakia and Poland.
So far 53 people convicted by the tribunal have either served, or are currently serving, their sentence in one of the States which have reached an agreement. Three others are awaiting transfer to one of the countries.