ANKARA (AFP) - A delegation from the Council of Europe yesterday visited Turkey’s prison island of Imrali to inspect the jail conditions of its sole inmate, Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, the Anatolia news agency reported. The delegation comprised members of the committee for the prevention of torture at the Council of Europe, a 44-nation Pan-European rights watchdog. Ocalan’s lawyers and family recently complained that the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was being increasingly isolated. The authorities have prevented them from visiting him for weeks, allegedly because of bad weather. The PKK has threatened to initiate a civil disobedience campaign among Turkey’s sizable Kurdish minority unless Ocalan’s jail conditions are improved.

GORNJA KORETICA (AP) - Three former ethnic Albanian rebels wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal were detained yesterday for atrocities committed during Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war, NATO said. The detentions mark the first time the UN war crimes tribunal has acted against former ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army for alleged atrocities committed during the Kosovo conflict. NATO confirmed the arrests in a statement but did not identify those detained. One of the three was identified by family members who said that Haradin Balaj, 46, was detained by NATO-led peacekeepers who broke into his house at 3 a.m. local time in the central village of Gornja Koretica, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Pristina.

The manager of one of Albania’s many collapsed pyramid schemes and his three sons yesterday were convicted of “theft through deceit” and sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison, justice sources said. Rrapush Xhaferri, who set up the dodgy investment scheme, was sentenced by Tirana’s district court to 15 years for stealing 15 billion lek ($115 million) from about 1.2 million private investors. His three sons were handed prison terms of 10-12 years, two of whom in absentia. The Xhaferris appealed the verdict. (AP)

Bulgaria has evacuated the families of its diplomatic representatives in Baghdad and has cut its embassy staff to seven people in anticipation of a US-led attack on the country, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday. Bulgaria, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, is one of the last countries to have evacuated its citizens from the Iraqi capital, the spokesman said, quoted by the BTA news agency. (AFP)

Slovaks will vote May 16-17 on whether to join the European Union, President Rudolf Schuster’s office said yesterday. “The referendum will determine the country’s future for many years ahead,” Schuster said in a statement. (AP)