Kosovo indicts 45 on terrorism charges over 2023 attack
Kosovo announced the indictment
of 45 suspects on terrorism charges on Wednesday, almost a year after ethnic
Serb gunmen stormed a north Kosovo village and battled police in a shootout
that left four people dead including a police officer.
The incident, the worst violence
in the restive area since the western Balkan republic declared independence
from Serbia in 2008, aggravated tensions between Pristina and Belgrade.
"There is strong evidence
that all 45 suspects have committed criminal offences related with terrorism,
criminal offences against constitutional order, financing of terrorism and
money laundering,” Blerim Isufaj, chief prosecutor of the Special Prosecution
of Kosovo, told a press conference.
On Sept. 24, 2023, police said
about 80 gunmen entered Kosovo from Serbia in armoured vehicles and barricaded
themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Banjska village in Kosovo's
north, an area mainly inhabited by ethnic Serbs.
Three gunmen and a Kosovar police
officer were killed in the shootout, while the rest of the assailants fled to
Serbia on foot through hills, leaving behind cars loaded with weapons,
ammunition and explosives.
The prosecution said that Milan
Radoicic, the leader of the group and a former top Kosovo Serb politician, is
among the accused. Radoicic, who lives in Serbia, has publicly admitted taking
part in the gunbattle.
All the suspects, some of whom
are Kosovo citizens, are believed to be in Serbia. It is unlikely they will be
handed to Kosovo authorities, because Belgrade does not recognize Kosovo's
independence and still considers it part of its own territory.
Kosovo blames Serbia for being
behind the shootout. Belgrade denies this.
Early this year the global police
agency Interpol issued international arrest warrants for 19 suspects including
Radoicic.
Some 50,000 Serbs who live in
north Kosovo do not recognise Pristina's institutions and see Belgrade as their
capital. They have often clashed with Kosovo police and international
peacekeepers.
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