Kosovar authorities have expelled two members of Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) from the country, just hours after their arrest on Saturday on suspicion of undermining national security, their lawyers confirmed to Radio Free Europe on Sunday.
Nikola Vujović and Mladen Milojević were deported on Saturday evening, and both have been banned from entering Kosovo for five years, their lawyers Bogdan Lazić and Srgjan Mitrović, respectively, stated.
Vujović and Milojević were among three active members and one retired member of the Serbian MUP who were arrested in Kosovo on Saturday. Kosovar authorities only confirmed Vujović’s arrest and the intention to deport him after Kosovo’s acting Minister of Internal Affairs, Xhelal Sveçla, revoked his Kosovar citizenship on Saturday, stating that he was recruited by Serbia’s intelligence and security institutions.
Sveçla said on Saturday that Vujović “poses a risk to our national security as a member of Serbia’s police forces.” Milojević serves as a Serbian police officer in Raška and hails from Leposavić, a Serb-majority municipality in northern Kosovo. Vujović, who comes from Zubin Potok, also in northern Kosovo, has announced a lawsuit against the Kosovar authorities’ decision to revoke his citizenship, his lawyer said.
Legal Basis for Citizenship Revocation and Serbian Response
According to Kosovo’s Law on Citizenship, a person loses citizenship if they engage in activities that endanger Kosovo’s national security; are intentionally a member of an organization aimed at overthrowing or harming Kosovo’s constitutional order; or are a member of another state’s intelligence service or police forces without local consent and without a prior international agreement.
Sveçla stated that Serbia is making “systematic efforts” to internally destabilize Kosovo by employing Kosovar citizens within its security and intelligence institutions, an “act contrary to our laws and an infringement of our national security.”
The Office for Kosovo within the Government of Serbia condemned the decision of the Kosovar authorities to arrest the active and retired MUP members on Saturday. It stated that Kosovar authorities had “no legal reason” for their arrest and that this “is politically motivated revenge against the Serb people.”
Context of Recent Arrests
Their arrest occurred a week after Serbia arrested a former member of Kosovo’s Special Police Unit on June 7 at the border crossing between Hungary and Serbia, while he was returning from Austria to Kosovo by bus with his family. Arbnor Spahiu is suspected by Serbian authorities of “aggravated murder in Banjska” – where a group of armed Serbs attacked the Kosovo Police in September 2023, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku – said the lawyer engaged by Spahiu’s family, Arianit Koci, in an interview for Radio Free Europe on Friday. Koci stated that the defense has already filed an appeal against the decision for a one-month detention.
