August 29, 2005

KiM-Info Newsletter 29-08-05

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Kosovo shooting suspects freed

The attack is believed to have been carried out by a well-organised group of people.  Kosovo governor Soeren Jessen-Petersen said that no stone will be left unturned in finding the attackers.  The same phrase was used by his predecessor, Hari Holkeri, after the murder of Serbian children in Gorazdevac two years ago.  The attackers have never been identified.

| 12:26 August 29 | B92, Belgrade

STRPCE -- Monday – Three men suspected of the unprovoked shooting of four young Serbs in Kosovo have been released from custody, Kosovo media report.

Two of the victims, Ivan Dejanovic and Aleksandar Stankovic, died in the shooting, while Nikola Dukic and Aleksandar Janicijevic were wounded.  The attack took place in the village of Banjica, near Strpce.

Local television in Strpce reports that the three suspects said they happened to be in the village of Kostanjevo, near the site of the incident, and that they did not match the description of the attackers given to police by one of the wounded victims.

Aleksandar Janicijevic, who was released from hospital in Gracanica after being treated for minor injuries, told police that the attack had been carried out from a black Mercedes, not a white one as previously reported.  According to local daily Glas Juga, this information was crucial in releasing the suspects.

The attack is believed to have been carried out by a well-organised group of people.  Kosovo governor Soeren Jessen-Petersen said that no stone will be left unturned in finding the attackers.  The same phrase was used by his predecessor, Hari Holkeri, after the murder of Serbian children in Gorazdevac two years ago.  The attackers have never been identified.

Despite a tense atmosphere in the province’s Serbian enclaves, there were no further incidents during the night.

“Terrorist act”
 
Describing the murders as “a terrorist act”, Serbian President Boris Tadic said last night that the murders were a message that Serbs do not belong in Kosovo.

“This terrorist act is yet more proof that the key issue in Kosovo is human rights.  It’s obvious to everyone that the society there is a long way from being ready for democracy and multiethnicity,” said the president.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica laid the blame at the door of the United Nations mission in the province, saying that its officials were responsible for “Albanian terror against Serbs in Kosovo”.  Also responsible, he said, was that part of the international community which ignores terrorist acts in order to expedite negotiations on the province’s final status.

Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic underlined Kostunica’s comments, saying that a distinction cannot and must not be made between terrorists in New York, London, Madrid, Moscow or Beslan and terrorists committing murders throughout Kosovo.

Condolences
 
The head of the UN mission, Soeren Jessen-Petersen, issued a strong condemnation of the murders and sent condolences to the families of the victims.

“I am shocked and disgusted by this senseless crime.  An investigation has begun and I think that speculation can’t help.  It is irresponsible and immature to speculate,” he said.

The Kosovo Government has condemned the crime and appealed to all Kosovo citizens to cooperate with police in finding the assailants.

Deputy Prime Minister Adem Saljihaj visited victim Nikola Dukic in hospital where he is recovering from surgery, telling journalists “Regardless of the motive and the perpetrators, the police must work intensively with all other bodies and resolve this case to quash speculation.  We stand behind the UNMIK police and the Kosovo police,” said the deputy prime minister.

Parliament protests
 
Today’s sitting of the Serbian Parliament began with a minute’s silence when Speaker Predrag Markovic called on MPs to honour “the victims of Albanian terrorism in Kosovo”.

Serbs will gather in Strpce today at 1.00 p.m. to protest at the murder and wounding of members of the community.

A crisis group has been set up in the town to set up permanent checkpoints at the access roads to Strpce in order to monitor people coming and going from the area.  A preliminary agreement has already been made to re-establish convoys in order to provide safe travel between the area and Serbia proper.

New Albanian Suspect Detained

SRNA, News Agency
August 28, 2005

STRPCE (SRNA) - Police today detained one Albanian man after releasing three others who had been suspected of taking part in the killing of two Serbian youths and the wounding of two others near Strpce, representatives of international police told the Strpce crisis headquarters.

The three Albanians who were detained this morning were released due to lack of evidence. The identity of the most recent detainee has not been released, Strpce crisis headquarters member Jovica Buduric told SRNA.

The Strpce crisis headquarters has decided to hold peaceful protests tomorrow beginning at 1:00 p.m. and invited UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Petersen to visit Strpce since "what we have here is classic terrorism" and "the Kosovo administrator's standards collapsed on August 27, 2005".

Ivan Dejanovic and Aleksandar Stankovic were killed in an armed attack in the village of Banjica on the Urosevac-Strpce highway, while Nikola Dukic and Aleksandar Janicijevic were wounded.

The three suspects in the attack who were later released stated, according to Strpce local television, that they were near the place of the attack by coincidence and that they did not correspond to the description of the attackers given to police by one of the youths.

Police arrested the three this morning in the village of Kostanjevo in Strpce municipality and confiscated their white Mercedes as well as the hunting weapons it found in the vehicle.

However, one of the wounded Serbian youths had said in his statement for police that the attackers were in a Mercedes in a dark color.

In the first attack on the vehicle in which the Serb youths were traveling near the village of Banjica, one of the tires on their automobile was punctured. When the four got out to change the wheel, more gunfire came from the same Mercedes, killing Dejanovic and Stankovic, and wounding Janicijevic and Dukic.

Physicians in the hospital in Pristina removed Dukic's spleen, while Janicijevic sustained hand injuries and is in stable condition. Janicijevic was transferred from the hospital in Pristina to Gracanica this morning at his own request.

Concerns of al-Qaida Balkan Link Renewed

By JOVANA GEC, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 29, 3:31 AM ET

The arrest in Serbia of a top terrorist fugitive has raised fresh concerns of an al-Qaida presence in the volatile Balkans, where thousands of U.S. and other international troops are stationed as peacekeepers.

Abdelmajid Bouchar, a 22-year-old Moroccan, sought for involvement in last year's train bombings in the Spanish capital Madrid, that killed nearly 200 people, was caught at the Belgrade railway station in June.

The arrest, revealed earlier this month, revived concerns that the Balkans - with its porous borders, unsophisticated security systems, rampant corruption and organized crime - could serve as a haven for al-Qaida-linked terrorist groups.

Local officials and experts have long warned that the Balkans at least is a major transit route for the terrorists, as well as for organized crime, including human and drug trafficking. They said the two often go hand in hand.

Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said police believed Bouchar was most likely passing through Serbia. He noted that "Serbia-Montenegro lies on important east-west transit routes."

Bouchar was arrested by chance during a routine police patrol check at a train that arrived to the Serbian capital from the northern town of Subotica, located on the border with Hungary, Serb authorities said.

Bouchar was sitting in a train compartment with several other people. He said he was an immigrant from Iraq en route to Western Europe - a common sight for Serbia's police which are used to escorting people who are heading west.

But Bouchar stood out, they said. He was traveling in the wrong direction, from north to south, had no documents on him and was too well-dressed for a poor Iraqi immigrant in search of a better life in Western Europe.

A month and a half later, after weeks of back-and-forth with Interpol, it turned out that Bouchar was one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

"He was arrested thanks to the good thinking of a police officer," said Darko Trifunovic, who teaches at Belgrade's security faculty. "This wasn't a well-planned action."

No details about Bouchar's stay in Serbia have been made public. Jocic told The Associated Press that an investigation was under way to determine what he was doing in Belgrade and whether he had any associates here.

Zoran Dragisic, a terrorism expert from Belgrade's Faculty of Defense, warned that the Balkans could be more than just a transit station.

"The Balkans is the springboard for Europe-bound terrorism," he told AP. "We should all be extremely careful."

Dragisic claimed that al-Qaida put down roots in the Balkans in the early 1990s, when the region exploded in a series of ethnic conflicts. The political turmoil and ensuing instability led to the collapse of the security network, allowing organized crime to flourish.

News reports during the conflict in Bosnia suggested that outsiders joined Bosnia's Muslims in their conflict with the region's Serbs and Croats - though the extent of their impact in the chaos was never clear. Dragisic said that radical Islamic fighters came to the region to fight.

Some of the outsiders married local women and stayed long after the end of the 3 1/2 year war.