Opinion ID: 787211
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Berishaj's Testimony and Corroborating Affidavit

Text: 7 Berishaj is an ethnic Albanian who spent his youth in Montenegro, at the time part of Yugoslavia. 2 In the summer of 1991, he went to Kosovo, a neighboring province of Yugoslavia, to attend a university that conducted classes in his native Albanian tongue. (At that time, no university in Montenegro conducted classes in Albanian.) Serb forces had taken control in Kosovo in 1990, and had officially closed the university, but it continued to function underground, with classes held in private homes in Pristina, a major city in Kosovo. Berishaj's uncle, Palok, with whom Berishaj lived at the time, was one of the leading organizers of the illegal university, and he recruited Berishaj to find private homes in which to hold classes. Because of his activities, Palok was arrested in 1991, and again in 1994, when he was detained and beaten for several days. Berishaj was arrested in Pristina in the spring of 1992 for his assistance to the illegal university; he was beaten with a rifle butt and detained overnight. Not trusting the Serbian doctors at the hospital, Berishaj was treated by an Albanian doctor practicing illegally, and returned to Montenegro a few weeks later. 8 Shortly after returning to Montenegro, Berishaj was inducted into the army; he was sent to serve in Serbia, where he spent eleven months. He was easily recognizable as an ethnic Albanian, among a predominantly Serbian army-Berishaj is a well-known Albanian name; indeed, one Sali Berishaj was the former president of Albania. In the army, Berishaj served as a tank gunman following a three-month training period in which he learned to operate the tank gun from instructions in Serbian. In the tank crew of three or four, Berishaj was the lowest in rank, taking orders from Serbs in charge of the tank. Berishaj did not, in these eleven months, go to war in Bosnia. Berishaj attributed this to the Serbian officers not trusting Albanians enough to send them to war. Berishaj's duties mostly consisted of cleaning the tank gun and guarding the tank. He was beaten at the direction of Serbian officers for singing songs in Albanian, and he stopped speaking Albanian publicly, relying on the Serbian he learned while in the army. After completing eleven months of military service, Berishaj was discharged. He returned to Montenegro, then to Kosovo briefly to take university examinations, and then back to his parents' home in Montenegro. 9 In December 1993, four policemen — apparently military police-came to his parents' house at midnight and took him to fight in Bosnia. He served again as a gunman, and was ordered to destroy buildings, houses, and shoot at the army and at Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Berishaj explained that he had no choice but to shoot civilians: I would either, you know, shoot or [the Serbians] would kill me. Ethnic Albanians in the army were not trusted to shoot without being under Serbian control. For example, Berishaj explained, When we were in the tank, you know, using the gun, we would have somebody behind us [a Serbian] with an automatic gun.... Their function was that if somebody does not obey the order to shoot with a gun, they would kill him. Berishaj spent two months in the army this time, and escaped during the night in February 1994. He returned to his parents' home in Montenegro. 10 Fearing that he would be arrested and returned to the army, Berishaj crossed illegally from Montenegro into Albania, where he spent the next fourteen months in hiding at his cousin's home. He sought, but was unable to obtain, legal status in Albania; as a result, the Albanian authorities learned of him. His cousin, fearing the Albanian police, convinced Berishaj to return to Montenegro in April 1995. Upon returning to his parents' home in Montenegro, Berishaj learned that he was wanted by the police, and he went to reside with his sister, who lived in another village several miles from his parents' home. The five months with his sister were spent mostly indoors, as were the following months, which he spent with an uncle in yet another village. 11 Berishaj ultimately was located by the Montenegrin police in September 1996, and detained for two days. They asked him why he deserted from the army, and why he did not finish his studies at the official university (i.e., the Serbian-run university); it was clear that the police knew he had participated in the illegal university. Berishaj was released from custody apparently when an uncle fabricated a story about Berishaj needing to visit an ill family member and posted bail for him. Berishaj returned illegally to Albania, where he resided until February 1997, when he was smuggled to Belgrade, and from there to France, then Brazil, then the United States. 12 Since being in the United States, Berishaj has had limited contact with family members in Montenegro, fearing that his family would be coerced by the police into revealing his whereabouts. In January 2001, Berishaj spoke to his father for the first time since leaving Montenegro nearly four years before. His father explained, in Berishaj's words that once I left, the [Montenegrin] police came three times and checked the house inside out looking for me after I had escaped. At this time, they asked him `Where is he? Where can we find him?' And his response was he didn't know.... After I left, my father was telling me that many incidents they came and checked the house inside out three times, and at one point were also guarding the house overnight to see if I would come home. The police stopped searching for Berishaj when his father told them that Berishaj had left permanently. Berishaj also learned from his father that his brother was serving a five-year sentence for helping the Kosovar resistance during the war. Berishaj's sister, a naturalized American citizen, confirmed in an affidavit made in late 1997 that she had received similar accounts from their father, brother, and sister regarding police activity at their parents' home. 13