The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora of Kosovo (MPJD) has condemned as arbitrary the arrest of a Kosovar citizen by the Serbian authorities on Saturday, saying that it has asked the international community to help in his immediate release. In a media release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Liaison Office of Kosovo in Serbia was notified on Saturday of the arrest of Tefik Mustafa by the Serbian authorities at the Merdare border crossing, for alleged war crimes against the non-Albanian population, during the war in Kosovo in 1999.
Previously, the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia announced to the media on Saturday afternoon about Mustafa’s arrest. The Kosovar Ministry said that it “severely condemns the detention, arrest and mistreatment of the citizens of the Republic of Kosovo and, at the same time, calls on the International Community to take concrete steps for the immediate release of the citizen Tefik Mustafa”.
She called on the international community to also demand responsibility from the Serbian state “for these arbitrary and destructive actions, which contradict the international conventions on human rights”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that it will officially ask the Serbian authorities to allow the representative of the Kosovo office in Serbia, Jetish Jashari, to visit Mustafa, “so that the state and the Government of Kosovo will be informed more concretely about the treatment that is being done to Mustafa from Serbian bodies”. Regarding the arrest of Mustafa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it has immediately notified the QUINT countries in Kosovo and the diplomatic missions of the United States and Great Britain and other countries in Belgrade.
The Liaison Office of the Republic of Kosovo in Serbia has sent an official request to the Liaison Office of Serbia in Kosovo for confirmation of the arrest and for the provision of other relevant details, in which request the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia is also included,” the announcement states. In the last three years, several Kosovo citizens have been arrested in Serbia on suspicion of having committed crimes during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.
On April 17, Serbian authorities arrested Kosovar citizen Sadik Duraku, who also holds British citizenship, on suspicion of “war crimes” in 1999 – charges denied by his family. Durak was arrested at a border crossing between Croatia and Serbia, and a Serbian court remanded him in custody that same month. His family members say that the charges against Durak do not stand, as he, before the war in 1999, lived with his family in England. At the beginning of this year, the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, accused Serbia of what he called unjust, deliberate and malicious arrests of Kosovo citizens.
