A serious case that seeks a rapid and objective investigation
According to the press reports dated July, 9, 2004 ,
the previous day on the date July 8, 2004 in the Militaty Hospital of Tirana, the minor Erigert Ceka passed away , death that is doubted to be caused by the strike on the head whereas he was kept in the detention cells of Rrėshen. Albanian
Helsinki Committee assessed these reports and apart from the information provided from the relevant authorities in Rrėshen,
sent its group for an in-field verification (in the Military Hospital of Tirana) where the juvenile Erigert Ceka was hospitalized and where his death occurred.
The verifications conducted resulted that on the date July 5 2004 about 17.00 hours there was a quarrel for weak motifs between Ceka and his room mate, a major with personality problems, but it was the intervention of the guards and then they were reconciled. After that, he was accompanied in his own cell, Ceka showed signs of troubles such as dizziness and vomits,
that forced the law enforcement officials to send him to the hospital in Rrėshen. After some treatment he came back to the detention room and during the night his physical state deteriorated, although he was treated by the hospital doctors of Rreshen. His situtaion deteriorated and at midnight he was sent to the military hospital. From the verifications it is not clear when and who damaged
him, damages that led to his death.
From the examination of the file documentation of the minor at the military hospital it resulted that:
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For days the minor had a temporal fracture of the post ear bone
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The
Diagnosis with which he was hospitalized was cerebral coma. the minor had a brain edema and haematoma, swelling and blood collection on th brain. after he was made the scanner, the last diagnosis was parietal lominous fracture.
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According to the doctors the state of his coma was caused with heavy means and he was hopeless.
Albanian Helsinki Committe is not competent neither to make an assessment of the afore mentioned data nor to conclude on the real causes that caused the death of Erigert Ceka. This issue belongs to the forensic medicine experts for solution.
Albanian Helsinki Committee is concerned about the fact that there is no due attention shown to the treatment of the detainees in compliance with the law and home regulations in the detention rooms where juveniles are located as well. What's worse there are no measures taken for the prevention of conflicts that can harm their life and health.
Albanian Helsinki Committe protests about the manner of the treatment of the minors in detention , manner that is in contradiction with the intenational regulations and the Albanian ones as regards the treatment of the juveniles in the police and sentence serving institutions .
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Under the UN recommendations summed up in the instrument " The Entity of the Minimal Rules of the United Nations related to juvenile justice (Beijing Rules), the detained juveniles shall be kept separate from the majors.... and shall be kept in institutions where there are other minors as well (article 13 & 4). During detention the juveniles shall have the care, protection
and all the individual educative medical assistence ....and the physical one (article 13& 5) . In the concrete case the victim was located in the same cell with a major and pervert person.
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Detention of this juvenile was in contradiction with the article 9 of the Regulation "On the organization and functioning of the detention system that defines the criteria of the distribution of the detainees in the detention rooms and highlights especially that the the distribution in the rooms (cells) of the juveniles to be held separatley. In the case in question the
juvenile was in the same cell with adult people.
This is precisely the reason that the Albanian Helsinki Comittee seeks from the relevant bodies to analise in detail these problems provoked by the case in question and to define the responsibilities of the non enforcement of the rules of the treatment of the arrested juveniles.
Albanian Helsinki Committe seeks from the prosecution bodies (Prosecutor's office), that if the contested data have sufficient criminal elements, to open penal prosecution, a thing that would facilitate not only the clarification of the real causes of the death of the 17 year old juvenile
Erigert Ceka, but also the circumstances and the conditions that led to the precipitation of such an occurrence.
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