"Panda" case: Serbian prosecutor says BIA has not responded to request to question Vučić

The Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office has announced that the Intelligence and Security Agency (BIA) has not responded to its requests to interview former State Security chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, as well as the current President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, as part of the investigation into the murders at the "Panda" cafe in Kosovo in 1998.

The lawyer for the victims' families, Ivan Ninic, on July 27th requested a reaction from the Chief Public Prosecutor, emphasizing that the Organized Crime Prosecution Office has not responded to his proposal for more than three years to question Stanisic, Simatovic, and Vucic as witnesses, regarding the murder of six young Serbs.

In a response to REL, the Prosecution said it has taken action to verify whether the proposed individuals possess knowledge that would make them credible witnesses in the investigation.

"To this end, on several occasions we have requested the BIA to hold conversations with the aforementioned persons regarding circumstances that are important for the investigation. However, so far we have not received a response to these requests," the Prosecution's response states.

According to her, further steps will depend on the report expected to be submitted by the BIA.

Lawyer Ninic explained that the questioning of Stanisic and Simatovic was proposed to verify the indirect testimonies of a witness, which are related to Simatovic and his possible knowledge of the event at the "Panda" cafe in Peja.

Meanwhile, Vučić's testimony was requested after he has publicly stated several times that there is certain information about the murders in "Panda".

In 2013, when he was Serbia's first deputy prime minister, Vučić declared that there was no evidence that the crime had been committed by Albanians and that public opinion in Serbia would be confronted with "terrible truths" regarding the case.

According to Ninić, the questioning of Vučić was proposed considering his state functions, especially his position as head of the Bureau for the Coordination of Security Services, which he has held since 2013, thus having access to highly sensitive information from the security sector.

In the same request to the Chief Public Prosecutor, Ninic also requested that the Prosecution verify the claims that Radomir Boban Baqovic is the direct perpetrator of the massacre.

These claims were published on July 18 in a video on the Telegram social network by Miloš Medenica, a fugitive Montenegrin citizen, who stated that Baqović “has been known since the 90s as a person who worked for the then State Security Service.”

The prosecution told REL that Baqoviqi has never been questioned in any capacity in connection with the "Panda" case, as so far no one has mentioned him as a credible witness in the investigation.

She added that she does not oppose the request of the victims' families' lawyer for extraordinary supervision of her work in this case, the investigations into which began in 2016 and are still ongoing.

"The procedure has not been completed because so far sufficient evidence has not been provided to create a well-founded suspicion as to who the perpetrators of the crime are," the Prosecution's response states.

The Prosecution also stated that it is ready to submit to the Supreme Public Prosecution a report on all actions taken during the investigation.

Five high school students – Ivan Obradović, Zoran Stanojević, Svetislav Ristić, Dragan Trifović and Vukosav Gvozdenović – as well as student Ivana Radović were killed on December 14, 1998, when two masked men entered the “Panda” cafe in Peja and opened fire.

The killings occurred at a time when interethnic tensions in Kosovo were very high and the war between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had begun.

That same day, several KLA members were killed in an ambush by Serbian forces while transporting weapons from Albania.

The massacre at the “Panda” cafe was considered at the time as an act of revenge, which led to the arrest of several Albanians in Peja.

All those arrested were released a year later by the Court in Belgrade due to lack of evidence./REL