16 people detained in Kosovo, including members of Serbian security services, says Svecla

Kosovo’s Acting Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla announced that 16 people, including “active officers of the Serbian security services”, were detained in an operation carried out on Saturday and Sunday.

Svecla stated that 12 of the detainees were “hiding” in the seminary, after which Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated that the detainees had gone to visit the seminary and monasteries around Prizren, and the Serbian Orthodox Church reported that some of the detainees had spent the night in the seminary’s guest house.

The Acting Minister of the Interior of Kosovo stated on his Facebook profile that the detainees were travelling in four cars with Kragujevac (KG) licence plates. According to Svecla, one group of four people was detained in Gjakova. In the meantime, another 12 people were detained in Prizren.

“According to initial information, it is suspected that these groups were gathering information on possible targets, as evidence of links with Serbian military-intelligence structures and members of the Banjska terrorist group was found,” Svecla wrote.

The Kosovo authorities consider the armed attack in Banjska, in north Kosovo, in September 2023 to be a terrorist attack and blame Serbia for it. Milan Radoicic, former vice-president of the Serbian List, claimed responsibility for the attack, but Belgrade denied involvement. One Kosovo police officer and three Serbian assailants were killed in the attack.

Svecla said that photographs of a map of Kosovo, photographs of the murdered attackers in Banjska, two knives, an axe and a rotary lantern were found in the car of those detained in Gjakova.

The Kosovo police also reported the arrest of four people in Gjakova, but this case was also mentioned in the announcement for the Kosovo Security Council meeting held on Sunday.

Svecla said that among the 12 detainees in Prizren, who he said were “hiding” in the seminary, were “two active officers of the Serbian security services”.

Vucic said that the detainees would visit the seminary and the monasteries around Prizren.

“Imagine, some of these people are also members of the security structures, and then they found, they say, a knife and a broken axe, it is quite clear that it is not used for anything else, except for some private purposes and private needs,” Vucic said.

The Raska-Prizren Eparchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo reported that some of the detainees had spent the previous night in the guest house of the theology in Prizren, that monasteries, religious centres and the theology itself receive guests every day and that the church “cannot have insight into all these persons”.

They point out that all those who come from outside Kosovo cross the border legally under the supervision of the Kosovo police and that they then have the right to move around and attend religious services.

“Any suggestion that the persons in question stayed overnight in the guest room of the seminary, that they used a ‘religious institution to camouflage and stir up inter-ethnic and religious tensions in Kosovo’, as stated in today’s communication from the Kosovo Police, is completely irresponsible and not based on concrete facts,” the statement said.

The Serbian government’s Kosovo office announced that Pristina had “launched a wave of arrests of pilgrims” from Serbia, saying that the aim was to “further destabilise the situation” in Kosovo and “put pressure on the Serbian people”.

“This is the most blatant legal violence and the most blatant violation of religious freedoms,” the statement said.

Svecla said that, based on preliminary investigations by Kosovo security authorities, one of those detained is a “Serbian police officer of the rank of lieutenant” who has “close links” with Nemanja Radivojević, who is believed to be a member of the armed group that carried

“The latter is close to Vladimir Radivojevic, known as ‘Mami’, who is the main suspect in the murder of Kosovo police chief Afrim Bunjaku. Another military official, who holds the rank of captain first class, is linked to former Serbian military intelligence general Jovan Milanovic”, Svecla said.

In Kosovo, some 40 people have been indicted in the Banjska case, including Milan Radoicic. He and most of the men in the group are believed to be at large in Serbia, while Vladimir Tolic, Blagoje Spasojevic and Dusan Maksimovic are in detention in Kosovo.

They were arrested after the Banjska attack and their first hearing will take place on 17 April.

The Banjska attack is also being investigated by Serbia, but no charges have been brought so far.

The international community has strongly condemned the attack and demanded that those involved be brought to justice./RSE/