Representatives of the Serbian National Council of Northern Kosovo and Metohija submitted today a petition signed by 18,000 citizens of Kosovo and Metohija requiring the arrested Serbs to be released pending trial.

"The arrested Serbs, Dragoljub Delibasic, Oliver Ivanovic, Radovan Radic and others must be insured the right to a fair trial and the possibility to prove their innocence while released pending trial," says the letter, delivered along with the petition to the Head of EULEX Mission Bernd Borchardt and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General Farid Zarif.

It is estimated that the months-long detention of Serbs does not achieve the rule of law but their basic human rights are being threatened.

"Unfounded arrests of Delibašić, Ivanovic, Radic and others based on false allegations of false witnesses for the alleged crimes, are destabilizing the political and security situation and ultimately lead to the emigration of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija," warns the SNC. It is expected, as stated in a letter, "contrary to pressure and blackmail coming from Pristina, to act fairly and objectively, in the spirit of the UN Resolution 1244 and to assist in achieving real, legally-based demands of the Serbian people from Kosovo, unanimously expressed that Delibasic, Ivanovic, Radic and others, after months in prison to be released pending trial and to have equal treatment.

President of the SNC of North Kosovo and Metohija Milan Ivanovic, said at a press conference on the occasion of submission of the petition, that "the arrests are taking place in a series, that lists are being made of hundreds of Serbs who should be arrested," and assessed that it is a real hunt and a call to pressure, discriminate and intimidate the Serbs.

"Serbs should have the right to a fair and proper trial," said Ivanovic to EULEX representatives and said that with impartial and objective action they should allow entrenchment of the rule of law.

"They have our full guarantee and a guarantee of the Government of Serbia," recalled Ivanovic, called "Serbian institutions to fully stand behind all Serbs who are in prison because, as he noted, the arrested Serbs are well known whose detention disturbs and other Serbs, which will achieve strategic goal of Albanians and that is ethnically pure Kosovo."