Criminal justice

Ill-treatment of individuals both by the police and prison staff in Bulgaria remains a serious problem which require urgent action by the authorities, the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has said.

Bulgaria's judicial authorities plan to introduce electronic tagging of criminal offenders put under house arrest, a prison system official said on Tuesday.

Currently, the electronic monitoring devices are used to track the movement of convicts sentenced to prison terms and released on probation, Valentina Karaganova, head of the project, told Nova TV station on Tuesday.

At least five prison officers and a number of inmates were injured in a mass brawl in Montenegro's largest prison in Podgorica on Wednesday.

Prison authorities said the riot involved more then 30 people who attacked prison staff during their regular daily walk.

BELGRADE - There are no systemic forms of torture in Serbian prisons, but the conditions in them are inhumane due to overcrowding, a conference on the results of a study conducted by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia was told on Friday.

BELGRADE - The Belgrade High Court has imposed a custodial sentence of 30 days at the proposal of the War Crime Prosecutor's Office for persons suspected of partaking in the kidnap and murder of 20 train passengers near the village Strpci, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1993.

The lawyer of Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, currently in pretrial detention over charges of illegal weapons possession, has quit after judges rejected his appeal for the release of his client.

BELGRADE - The Belgrade Appellate Court extended the detention sentence for former general manager of Galentika pharmaceutical company Nenad Ognjenovic, aged 60, and ex chair of the Galenika Management Board Dejan Backovic, aged 39.

A bomb threat interrupted Golden Dawn MP Eleni Zaroulia's testimony before an Athens court on Thursday.

Zaroulia, who is the wife of the neo-Nazi party's detained leader Nikos Michaloliakos, was facing magistrates on charges of joining and directing a criminal organization.

She was expected to deny the charges.

A council of appeals court judges decided on Friday to extend the pretrial detention of Golden Dawn’s deputy leader Christos Pappas (photo) and MP Yiannis Lagos.

The two men have been in Korydallos Prison since September.

The were arrested in the wake of the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas by a Golden Dawn member.