The Basic Court in Pristina announced on Sunday that it has imposed a one-month detention on a suspect with the initials S.M., who is accused of activities against the country’s Constitution and hooliganism, in connection with the violence of May 2023 in the north of Kosovo.
In a press release, the court said that it has accepted the request of the prosecutors, because “if the defendant is released, he can escape, or he can change the evidence of the criminal offense and influence the other suspects who are found free”.
In the summer of last year, the Kosovo Police arrested ten members of the Serbian community for attacks on members of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, for accusations against the constitutional order of Kosovo and for attacks on journalists.
The suspect, a Serbian citizen, is charged with the criminal offenses of “association for anti-constitutional activity”, “endangering persons under international protection”, “participating in a crowd that commits a criminal offense and hooliganism”, as well as the “criminal offense of assault on an official person”. , the court said.
The court did not say when the suspect was arrested.
In the north, tensions rose last year after Kosovo police assisted new Albanian mayors to enter municipal buildings. This was opposed by the local Serbian population, who did not accept the results of the April local elections, which they boycotted.
The situation escalated on May 29, when Serbs clashed with KFOR and over 100 people were injured on both sides.
The court said on Sunday that S.M. is suspected of “with a suspected group participating in the protests organized on 29.05.2023 in front of the facility of the Municipality of Zveçan, attacking members of KFOR and members of the Kosovo Police”.
At the end of February this year, two suspects, Radosh Petrović and Dushan Obrenović, reached an agreement with the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo, after pleading guilty to the crime of “participating in a crowd that commits a criminal offense and hooliganism”.
They were arrested on May 29 last year in Zveçan, during clashes between Serbian protesters and KFOR members.
After pleading guilty, they were released./REL
