March 20,1999: Steve Pratt, country representative, and Peter Wallace, head of CARE's Pristina sub-office, remain in Belgrade after all other international CARE staff evacuate. Pratt and Wallace remain to oversee CARE's programs in Yugoslavia, which include assistance to Serbians from Bosnia living in refugee centers and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
March 22: CARE's programming in Kosovo, including shelter repair and the provision of emergency items such as food, winter clothing and blankets, is suspended.
March 31: After the security situation in Yugoslavia continues to deteriorate, Pratt and Wallace leave Belgrade and are detained at the Lipovac border checkpoint between Serbia and Croatia. This is the last confirmed sighting of the men for more than one week.
April 8: Local CARE staff member Branko Jelen is detained by Yugoslav authorities.
April 9: Yugoslav authorities confirm that Pratt and Wallace have been detained and held in custody.
April 11: Pratt is shown on Serbian television confessing that he used his position with CARE to perform covert intelligence activities. Responding to the television report, CARE USA President Peter D. Bell says that he believes the confession is coerced and untrue. In addition, CARE Australia Chief Executive Charles Tapp demands immediate consular access and reaffirms his call for their release. Tapp says, "Steve and Peter have been wrongly detained for more than 11 days. They are humanitarian aid workers. Good people whose job it is to help all in need, be they Serbian, Albanian or any other ethnic or national background. They have obviously been put under considerable pressure and duress."
April 13: The Yugoslav Foreign Ministry announces its plans to charge both Pratt and Wallace with spying. In response, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sends a personal letter to Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic appealing for consular access to both men and for their release. In addition, the UN Security Council and Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou issue statements calling for access to the two men.
April 20: Australian Ambassador Chris Lamb is granted consular access to Pratt and Wallace for the first time since their detention on March 31. Both aid workers are reportedly in good condition.
April 21: CARE International representatives travel to Belgrade for talks concerning the two detained CARE workers. Malcolm Fraser, Australia's former prime minister and CARE Australia's board chair, travels with CARE Australia's Chief Executive Charles Tapp and Graham Miller, CARE International's senior representative in Geneva. They meet with Yugoslav authorities about CARE's work in Yugoslavia and discuss the activities of the two aid workers before they were detained.
April 24: Malcolm Fraser and Australian Ambassador Chris Lamb are given access to Pratt and Wallace overnight.
May 11: Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, appeals for the release of the CARE workers.
May 14: Yugoslav authorities formally charge Pratt, Wallace and Jelen with espionage. In addition, three other CARE staff members who evacuated from Yugoslavia are also charged.
May 21: South African President Nelson Mandela appeals to Slobodan Milosevic and Boris Yeltsin for the release of the three men.
May 26: International observers are barred from the trial, which is held in Belgrade. The trial is presided over by a five-judge military panel.
May 29: Pratt, Wallace and Jelen are cleared of the original charge, but are convicted on a completely new charge of passing on secret information. The lawyers representing the three men are unable to dispute the claim of passing on information, as they have no details of these new charges. The court sentences Pratt to 12 years in jail, Wallace to four years and Jelen to six years. Lawyers acting for the three men plan to appeal the conviction and the sentences.
June 1: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. calls Yugoslav Foreign Minister Jovanovic, appealing to him to release the convicted aid workers.
June 3: The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator/UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Sergio Vieira de Mello, on behalf of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), which represents the humanitarian community at large in its UN and non-UN components, expresses deep concern at the conviction of the three CARE staff members in Belgrade. The IASC urges Yugoslav authorities to review the case and expresses hope that the men will be soon released.
June 4: Jackson calls for the immediate release of the CARE aid workers in a press conference in Atlanta. Jackson is joined by CARE USA President Peter D. Bell; Andrew Young, former UN ambassador and mayor of Atlanta; and Malcolm Fraser, vice president of CARE International, chair of CARE Australia's Board and former Prime Minister of Australia. During the press conference, Fraser announces that the diplomatic team of President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin raised the issue of the three CARE workers with both President Slobodan Milosevic and his foreign minister during their mediation talks earlier this week. In the United States, Bell says he was assured by senior officials in the U.S. State Department that the three CARE captives would not be forgotten in the difficult task of negotiating peace in the Balkans.
June 14: Pratt's wife, Samira, gains access to her husband and begins making daily visits to the three men. Wallace's parents leave Australia for Croatia where they obtain visas to travel to Belgrade.
June 19: Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer visits Belgrade to try to win the release of Pratt, Wallace and Jelen. Downer indicates the domestic political situation in Yugoslavia is making it difficult for President Slobodan Milosevic to free Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace.
June 20: Wallace's father, Ross, accompanies Downer to see his son for the first time since his captivity. Wallace reports that his son is in good spirits and looks healthy. Wallace describes it as a "very joyous and happy and emotional reunion."
June 21: Downer leaves Yugoslavia without winning the release of the two Australian aid workers, but he expresses confidence that the three men would be freed sooner, rather than later. Downer reports: "If the peace agreement holds, if the parties uphold their obligations under that agreement and the environment settles down fairly quickly. Then I think we would be looking at pretty rapid release."
June 30: The Wallace family returns to Australia.
July 5: British Prime Minister Tony Blair sends a letter to Australia's opposition leader on the eve of the appeal stating "I want you to know that we have very much in mind the plight of the CARE Australia workers. British Foreign Office staff are in close touch with the Australian High Commission in London to brief them on developments on the diplomatic track and to make sure we lose no opportunity to raise the issue of Steve and Peter in Belgrade."
Samira Pratt returns to Australia.
July 6: An appeal is lodged at the military court, where the case is reflected upon by five military judges. The three men, their lawyers, CARE representative Graham Miller and members of the Australian Embassy are present at the hearing.
July 7: Australia's Prime Minister John Howard meets with Japan's Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and obtains his verbal support to assist with the plight of CARE's aid workers.
July 10: This date marks the detention of Steve and Peter for 100 days.
July 11: Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer meets with China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who agrees to also support calls for the release of the three CARE workers.
July 12: United States President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright assure the Australian prime minister they will do all they can to press for the release of the Australian aid workers imprisoned in Serbia.
The U.S. House of Representatives passes a resolution urging the release of CARE humanitarian workers Pratt, Wallace and Jelen. The resolution urges that the United States government and the United Nations undertake urgent and strenuous efforts to secure the release of Branko Jelen, Steve Pratt, and Peter Wallace, three humanitarian workers employed in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by CARE International; and calls upon the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to send a positive signal to the international humanitarian community and to give these humanitarian workers their freedom without further delay.
July 15: Pope John Paul II appeals to the Yugoslav government on behalf of CARE aid workers Branko Jelen, Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace. In a personal letter to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the pontiff asks for clemency for the three men. The Australian government asked the pope to intervene through the Central Commission of the Australia Catholic Bishops' Conference.
July 21: A Belgrade daily newspaper announces that the outcome of the appeal is a reduction in the sentences of each of the men.
July 22: Official confirmation is given to the men's lawyers that the appeal result is a reduction in their sentences. Steve's sentence is reduced from 12 to eight years, Branko's from six to three years and Peter's from four years to one year.
August 9: The three men finish lodging appeals for clemency with President Milosevic after receiving a translation of the 57 page appeal verdict document into English.
August 16: Steve Pratt's wife Samira, due to give birth to the couple's first child on August 30, makes a personal appeal to President Milosevic to release her husband and the other two men.
September 1: President Slobodan Milosevic orders the release of Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace. Branko Jelen remains in prison.
September 13: Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace arrive back on Australian soil after spending five months in a Yugoslav prison.
December 31: President Slobodan Milosevic orders the release of Branko Jelen after eight months in detention.
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