Katherine MacAlister talks to an Oxford charity worker who knows what the arrested policemen in Serbia are going through . . .

When Dr Mark Almond switched on his television two days ago and saw that two British policeman had been taken hostage in Yugoslavia a chill went through him.

Just five months ago he too had been arrested by Serbian police and questioned in the police station.

He had been seen talking to soldiers and when stopped and searched the police found a map on him of the areas bombed by NATO.

It took him a whole day to explain that the map had been given to him by their government to show how devastated the country had become, and that he was a charity worker.

But his most tense moment was in July last year when he was again arrested and this time kept overnight.

"The police can keep you for 60 days before they even think of holding a trial, so my main concern was how long I was going to be kept in there," he remembers. "In Britain there is a great distinction between the police and the armed forces but over there they are pretty similar. What has changed is that two years ago any unwelcome or suspicious foreigners were just chucked out. Now they are arrested."

Fortunately he was released the next day and it has not deterred him from continuing his charity work with refugees.

"Every time I go there I am well briefed about the dangers in the areas, the political situation and provided with the correct documentation and as a result the police had nothing to hold me for," he says.

Dr Almond, 42, lives in north Oxford. He works for the British Helsinki Human Rights Group and visits Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo several times a year to ensure the countries are implementing their refugee pledges.

He lectures in modern history at Oriel College for the rest of the year, but is currently being used as a political commentator on the Balkan situation by numerous television companies and newspapers.

He has been openly critical of the British hostages' bosses and NATO chiefs who allowed the two policemen, Adrian Pragnell from Hampshire and John Yore from Cambridgeshire, to visit Montenegro where their car was stopped.

"The pair were over there helping to rebuild the Kosovan police and wanted to visit Montenegro, so travelled down with two Canadian miners, without a visa, and with mining equipment and detonators in the car boot," he says.

The pair have now been accused of planning sabotage, and local military authorities have demanded that they are charged with possession of explosives, attempting terrorist acts and illegal entry into Yugoslavia.

As Dr Almond has said on BBC news: "President Milosevic has called the elections for September and as he is wanted for war crimes is being ignored by the foreign offices of every Western country. No-one will visit him. So instead he has taken Canadian, Australian, Dutch and now British hostages and only seems to release them when the country in question sends out a dignitary. It's great propaganda for his campaign and makes him look like the saviour, saving the people from Western terrorists.

"So for a group of foreigners to think they could just pop over the border with no questions asked was foolish and naive. They should have been warned that westerners were being taken hostage, especially when armed with detonating equipment and the wrong paperwork. They were asking for trouble."

But Dr Almond is fairly confident that they will not be ill-treated: "The police didn't show any form of violence to me, although all round the interview room were death notices and pictures of the policemen killed in the NATO raids.

"What I am concerned about is how long they will be held."

In spite of the dangers, Dr Almond is quite happy to visit Macedonia, which is on the border with Kosovo, next month.

"I don't always tell my family I've been until I get back because I don't want them to worry. Being stopped and searched is just a way of life over there."