Drawing-slim
08-06-2013, 09:34 AM
EU Police Injured in Clash With Kosovo Serbs
Local Serbs in the north of Kosovo blocked a main road and threw stones, injuring two EU police officers, after two fellow Serbs were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
BIRN
The brief clash between local Serbs and EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX police officers erupted in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan on Monday after protesters used trucks to block the road between the capital Pristina and the town of Raska.
The EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, said that two of its police officers were injured when a group of protesters blocking the road hurled stones at them, in what was the first such confrontation in northern Kosovo since Belgrade and Pristina signed an agreement aimed at normalising relations in April.
“Two EULEX police officers were injured and the vehicle damaged... In an act of self-defence, one policeman fired a warning shot in the air,” EULEX said in a statement.
The incident came after EULEX and Kosovo police in the northern, Serb-majority part of the town of Mitrovica on Monday arrested two local Serbs, Slobodan Repic and Zarko Veselinovic, on suspicion of attempted murder last year.
Repic's lawyer, Ljubo Pantovic, said that his client had been remanded in custody for 48 hours and was being held in a police station in the southern, ethnic Albanian part of Mitrovica.
He said that Repic had been arrested on suspicion that he opened fire on the deputy director of the local administrative office of the Pristina government, Dusan Milisaviljevic.
Miodrag Brkljac, the lawyer for Zarko Veselinovic, said that his client was "suspected of illegal possession of a gun that he threw away before the arrest".
Veselinovic is the brother of a controversial businessman from the north of Kosovo, Zvonko Veselinovic, who has been charged by the Serbian organised crime prosecutor's office with illegally acquiring 32 trucks owned by leasing company Hypo Alpe-Adria-Leasing.
Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s government office for Kosovo, has urged Kosovo Serbs to be "dignified and calm" and to wait for the detained men to be released.
Local Serbs in the north of Kosovo blocked a main road and threw stones, injuring two EU police officers, after two fellow Serbs were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
BIRN
The brief clash between local Serbs and EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX police officers erupted in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan on Monday after protesters used trucks to block the road between the capital Pristina and the town of Raska.
The EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, said that two of its police officers were injured when a group of protesters blocking the road hurled stones at them, in what was the first such confrontation in northern Kosovo since Belgrade and Pristina signed an agreement aimed at normalising relations in April.
“Two EULEX police officers were injured and the vehicle damaged... In an act of self-defence, one policeman fired a warning shot in the air,” EULEX said in a statement.
The incident came after EULEX and Kosovo police in the northern, Serb-majority part of the town of Mitrovica on Monday arrested two local Serbs, Slobodan Repic and Zarko Veselinovic, on suspicion of attempted murder last year.
Repic's lawyer, Ljubo Pantovic, said that his client had been remanded in custody for 48 hours and was being held in a police station in the southern, ethnic Albanian part of Mitrovica.
He said that Repic had been arrested on suspicion that he opened fire on the deputy director of the local administrative office of the Pristina government, Dusan Milisaviljevic.
Miodrag Brkljac, the lawyer for Zarko Veselinovic, said that his client was "suspected of illegal possession of a gun that he threw away before the arrest".
Veselinovic is the brother of a controversial businessman from the north of Kosovo, Zvonko Veselinovic, who has been charged by the Serbian organised crime prosecutor's office with illegally acquiring 32 trucks owned by leasing company Hypo Alpe-Adria-Leasing.
Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s government office for Kosovo, has urged Kosovo Serbs to be "dignified and calm" and to wait for the detained men to be released.