GNJILANE: By 2027, Denmark will relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro agreement that has raised concerns among NGOs and residents but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU.
The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar MPs in 2024, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark.
They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes nor suffer from mental illness or a terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovo, they will be deported to their home country.
In exchange, Denmark will pay 200 million euros ($230 million) — more than six times the annual budget of Kosovo’s Ministry of Justice.
The detainees will be imprisoned in a dedicated facility in the village of Pasjak, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of the capital, Pristina, where work on renovation of the facility is to start soon.
From the main road, the narrow path leading to the red-bricked prison divides the village in two, leaving about 1,500 residents on one side.
The school, mosque and cemetery are on the other near the prison itself, which is surrounded by high walls with barbed wire and observation posts.


The project has left residents perplexed.
“We don’t know who they will bring or if they will pose a threat to the village,” said Zeke Zeka, a 57-year-old farmer and deputy chief of the village.
“If they were good, Denmark would keep them and not transfer them out of the country,” he added.
Hanging out washing in the courtyard, Zeka’s wife, Hasime, 57, said she regrets having a prison practically on her doorstep but added: “It can’t be helped. We weren’t asked.”
Doubt has spread even inside the prison, where the guards feel discriminated against.
“We will continue to work for the same pay but under a Danish regime, which is therefore more demanding, and whose standards are among the highest in Europe,” one of them explained to AFP during a tour.


The agreement stipulates that Kosovo “must make the necessary adjustments to the prison facilities to ensure they meet the requirements of the sending state,” explained Ismail Dibrani, director of the Kosovo Correctional Service.
“Of course, the layout will be adapted to the Danish prison system,” he added, specifying that there will be “workshops where prisoners can work in printing, sewing, design, etc..”
On the Danish side, the government appointed a senior official, Mads Beyer, in April to co-direct the prison, in cooperation with local authorities.
His job, he confirmed to AFP, will be “to ensure that prisoners serve their sentences in accordance with Danish rules and under conditions similar to those applied in Danish prisons.”
The UN Committee Against Torture, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and several NGOs have expressed concern about the project.
But the initiative is being keenly watched across Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently declared that prisoner relocation was “not taboo” while Sweden on Tuesday said it was looking to rent prison places in Estonia.
“Unlike the majority of European states that are facing prison overcrowding, we have sufficient capacity,” explained Dibrani.
“Our prison capacity is currently 2,500 places, while we instantly have around 1,800 prisoners.”
“After signing the agreement, we received a number of requests from European countries, for huge sums of money. But we haven’t discussed it yet,” he added.
“We already have a lot of work to do for our own country.”

BANGKOK: Thailand’s military said it is ready to launch a “high-level operation” to counter any violation of its sovereignty, in the strongest words yet in a simmering border dispute with Cambodia that re-erupted with a deadly clash last week.
The army said in a statement late on Thursday that its intelligence gathering indicated Cambodia had stepped up its military readiness at their border while diplomatic efforts were ongoing, describing that as “worrisome.” The statement was in sharp contrast with one from the government just hours earlier, when it urged Cambodia to positively engage in dialogue via an existing mechanism between them.
“The army is now ready for a high-level military operation in case it is necessary to retaliate against the violation of sovereignty,” it said, ahead of a meeting of its armed forces top brass scheduled for Friday.
“Operations of units at the border have been conducted carefully, calmly and based on an understanding of the situation to prevent losses on all sides, but at the same time, are ready to defend the country’s sovereignty to the fullest extent if the situation is called for.”
Cambodia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Thai military statement on Friday. The governments of the two countries had for days exchanged carefully worded statements committing to dialogue after a brief skirmish in an undemarcated border area on May 28 in which a Cambodian soldier was killed. Although the two countries have a historic rivalry, their governments enjoy friendly ties, partly due to the close relationship between their influential former leaders, Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodia’s Hun Sen, whose daughter and son respectively are now the prime ministers in their countries. The issue comes at a tricky time for the Pheu Thai Party-led administration in Thailand as it battles to revive a flagging economy that could be hit by steep US tariffs, while facing a challenge to its popularity having paused a signature cash handout to tens of millions of people.
The party of the billionaire Shinawatra family has a troubled history with the Thai military, which twice toppled its governments in 2006 and 2014 coups. Deadly clashes between Cambodia and Thailand last erupted in 2011 over the Preah Vihear, a 900-year-old temple at the heart of a decades-long row that has stirred nationalist sentiment on both sides. The International Court of Justice in 2013 ruled in favor of Cambodia in clarifying a 1962 decision to award it jurisdiction over the temple, saying part of the land around it was Cambodia’s and Thai troops must withdraw from the area.
Cambodia said this week it is committed to peace and plans to resolve the issue by referring disputes over four parts of their border to the ICJ and has asked Thailand to cooperate. Thailand says it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.