Leader of Bulgarian Minority Faces Military Court in Yugo Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - Vassil Karloukovski Leader of Bulgarian minority in Yugoslavia faces military court The leader of Democratic Union of Bulgarians in Yugoslavia - Dr. Marco Shukerov, was arrested in the beginning of June and put in a military prison in Nis. His wife - Pavlina Shukerova - gave the information that a law suit against him is sheduled for June 16th. Dr. Shukerov, who is a gynaeocologist, was taken as a reservist in the Yugoslav Army and worked there as a medical orderly. He was having a sharp toothache but was refused a visit to the dentist. One night he visited his wife who is a dentist and in the morning, when he returned to his military base, he was arrested as a deserter and put into a military prison. He has been there for 17 days, without any official charges against him. It is one week since he has not been seen even during the compulsory 40-minutes walk every day. Nobody has answered to the questions of his wife whether he was ill or whether he was transferred to a more severe regime. Shukerov also has a suspended sentence for participating in the May 24th celebration (the Day of the Saints Cyrillus and Methodius and of the Bulgarian and Slavic Culture) on the city square of Tsaribrod (Dimitrovgrad). Bulgarian President Peter Stoyanov had a talk with the councellor of the Helsinki Committee in Tsaribrod (Dimitrovgrad) - Ms. Zdenka Todorova. He expressed his anxiety about the information that in the prison Dr. Shukerov was put under pressure to abolish his Bulgarian citizenship, which is second to him. President Stoyanov also expressed his desire Dr. Shukerov to be defended by Bulgarian layers. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations were informed about the case. Bulgarian Foreign Affair Minister Ms. Nadezhda Mihajlova said, that all what is possible would be done for the release of Shukerov. She repeated that the taking reservists into the Yugoslav Army is done on ethnic basis, and that the accusations against Dr. Shukerov are groundless. Representatives of Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a protest note to the temporary representative of the Yugoslav Embassy in Sofia, Mr. Srechko Jukic. After "Pari" Newspaper, Sofia, June 15th http://www.news.pari.bg/cgi-bin/pari.home.cgi translated by P. Malinov and V. Karloukovski ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.19.99-05:29:49-29364