Pristina, Sept. 26, (dpa/GNA) – Kosovo’s public prosecutor’s office has requested pre-trial detention for three Serbian citizens, two days after heavy fighting between Serbian paramilitaries and Kosovan police officers that left five dead.
The trio is alleged to have been directly involved in the fighting on Sunday, the gazetaexpress.com news portal wrote on Tuesday, citing the prosecution.
The three men were detained after hours of fighting in the village of Banjska, also known as Bajskë, near Mitrovica.
A Kosovan policeman and four attackers were killed in the fighting.
Some of the paramilitaries are believed to have retreated across the border into neighbouring Serbia.
Kosovan Interior Minister Xheval Svecla said on Monday evening that documents belonging to Kosovo Serb politician Milan Radoičić had been found in a jeep left behind by the attackers, including weapons licences issued in Serbia.
Radoičić is vice president of the Serb List, a Kosovo Serb party that holds 10 of the 120 seats in Kosovo’s parliament. However, he mostly stays in Belgrade, where he enjoys the favour of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. He is wanted in Kosovo for an alleged fraud offence.
Vučić condemned the killing of the Kosovan policeman, while also showing understanding for the attackers’ actions. He claimed that they had been “provoked” into their actions because the Kosovo police were “terrorizing” the Serbs in Kosovo.
Kosovo, which today is almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, declared itself independent in 2008. More than 100 countries recognize its independence, but Serbia, Russia, China and five EU member states do not.
Belgrade is demanding the return of its former province. EU-mediated negotiations on normalizing relations have so far been fruitless.
GNA