Kosovo-Serbia blockade enables fugitives to enjoy freedom

When it was time for Kosovo doctor Lutfi Dervishi and his son Arban to serve a prison sentence in 2016 for one of the most terrible post-war crimes in the Balkans, the pair had disappeared.

BIRN could find out that Kosovo police believed the urologist and his son, suspected of having operated on an organ trafficking ring from the Medicus clinic in Pristina that are currently in the retrial, had crossed the border to go to Serbia.

In doing so, they joined a growing number of suspects and devious convicts who benefit from the lack of co-operation on security issues between Serbia and Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 but is not recognised by Serbia.

On paper, EU and UN initiatives have paved the way for police co-operation, intelligence exchange and recognition of international warrants.

But in practice, homicide suspects and drug dealers are avoiding justice by crossing the border, confident in their knowledge so far there has been no successful extradition case between Kosovo and Serbia. A Kosovo doctor suspected of conducting illegal IVF treatments is even offering its services after she fled to Serbia.

Family of missing persons in Kosovo are also complaining that the search for loved ones and for justice is seriously hampered by lack of co-operation.

Serbia's Justice Ministry, Kosovo Police and the EU's Mission to Rule of Law in Kosovo, EULEX, they said there has been a regular flow of information between Pristina and Belgrade in recent years. But interviews with officials working for EU institutions in Kosovo, as well as analysts who have studied the issue, say the process is fraught with difficulties and rarely results in decisive actions.

This is because Serbia is even quietly refusing to accept Kosovo's independence, but also as a result of the lack of confidence and bad feeling that has been built on both sides, they say.

“Unco-operated in legal and security issues, we continue to consider both countries as safe zones for criminals”, Florian Qehaja from the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies said.

In March 2016, the Court of Appeals of Kosovo confirmed the verdict against the doctor of the Medicus clinic, Lutfi Dervisi, and his son Arbani.

Both were ordered to appear in prison to serve the penalty for organ trafficking of several vulnerable victims for transplantation at the notorious clinic in Pristina- but the urologist and his son disappeared.

Nothing is known how the Dervis left Kosovo, but police in Pristina have now found that they believe the two men crossed the border with Serbia, where they were staying hidden despite having a red warning issued through the UN Mission Interpol office in Kosovo.

“Through our information, like L.D. So does his son A. They were on Serbia's territory and were hiding there from the Kosovo judicial system”, Kosovo Police spokesman Daut Hoxha told BIRN, referring to Lutfi Dervishi and his son, Arba.

However, it is not clear whether this information has been passed on to Serbia because EULEX, UNMIK and the Kosovo and Serbian justice ministries refused to comment on the issue.

In January 2017, Lutfi Dervishi entered Kosovo again after the Supreme Court ordered the case's retrial. He was soon arrested, but Arban is believed to still be in Serbia, according to police.

Lutfi Dervisi's retrial resumed in July 2017 and is still continuing.

Another doctor who took advantage of legal paths to avoid Kosovo authorities is Gina Zeqiri, a gynecologist and founder of Global Hospital, a clinic in Pristina specialising for treatment with the IVF.

In November 2014, her clinic was raided by Kosovo Police, who suspected Zeqiri of a number of works, including allowing parents to select the gender of children in exchange for payment, the purchase of sperm and ovaries by vulnerable people, and the employment of unlicensed embryoologists, according to an indictment filed by prosecutors in January 2016, which BIRN has provided.

Despite being wanted by Kosovo Police, Djinda Zeqiri fled to Serbia, from which she had the opportunity to provide similar services through a website in Albanian and Serbian languages, even though she denies having any clients.

In February 2014, Zeqiri had registered the company called Global IVF in Bujanovac, a municipality close to the border with Kosovo whose majority population are Albanians, and a month later it began to seek a rented office in this town. The Zeqiri is of origin from this area.

Nexhat Behluli, owner of the facility rented by Zeqiri, said she had initially started selling medical equipment, but in May of that year, she had transformed the office into a clinic for IVF.

I warned him what I didn't want him to do. IVF], and in our agreement we said it would sell medical equipment and it would not be clinic”, he said.

After she had refused to change the contract, he set a new lock on the door. The Zeqiri had then unsuccessfully indicted Behluli to get the money he had invested in.

According to court documents, provided by BIRN, Zeqiri was undergoing IVF treatment and abortions at this centre with a license obtained by the Ministry of Health of Serbia, even though it denies it.

Despite these obstacles, in December, after fleeing Kosovo, the globalif.net site was registered, and through it it continued to provide infertile services in Albanian and Serbian languages via “regional and international climates” as well as online consultations.

The Zeqiri, who insists she is innocent of the charges she is charged with, told BIRN that she plans to provide IVF services at a new clinic but that she has not yet started business. She denied the version of events described by the owner of the facility she had rented.

She said she cannot return to Kosovo because she believes there will be no correct judgment.

I wanted to reopen the clinic, but I was blocked and expected to see what was happening in Kosovo”, she said. No state is interested in allowing me to work because I am the victim of a non-functional state like Kosovo”.

The Constitutional Court in Pristina ordered the release of an international warrant for its arrest in June 2017, but Kosovo's Ministry of Justice if a red Interpol warning has been issued.

The institutions of Kosovo and Serbia refused to comment on this case, while Zeqiri told BIRN that she continues to travel freely.

There are not only Kosovo suspects who have benefited from lack of co-operation in matters of rule of law between Pristina and Belgrade to avoid justice.

B The INR has found three cases in which Kosovo police have arrested individuals either wanted or convicted of serious crimes in Serbia, but who have been released.

Kosovo police said Erad Bisevac, wanted in Serbia for murder since 2012, had been arrested in Kosovo in September 2014, but that Serbian authorities said they would not apply for extradition. Bisevac had been released and remained free for a year before being arrested in Serbia. He is now serving a 16-year prison sentence for murder and attempted murder.

Predrag Vukossavlevq, known as Predrag Vulicevic, was wanted in Serbia after he was found guilty of smuggling drugs, and was pronounced a three-year prison sentence when he was arrested in Kosovo in March 2015, based on a warrant issued by Serbia. Again, Kosovo police told BIRN that Serbia refused to seek extradition.

Kosovo police said another crime suspect, Aleksandar Vukadinovic, had been arrested in Kosovo in February 2016, a month after a red Interpol warning was issued by Serbia after being accused of Bitito and corruption.

According to Serbian media, Vukadinovic was found guilty of being part of an organised crime group involved in smuggling textiles to Serbia from Turkey and other states. He was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to 2 years and 3 months in prison in 2012, according to reports.

Kosovo police said Pristina had informed Serbia's police of his arrest and that rule bodies in Belgrade had demanded that Vukadinovic behave informally at the nearest border checkpoint. Since Vukadinovic also held Kosovo citizenship, Kosovo Police were unable to deport him.

“Based in response from the above-mentioned cases, the answer was the same: that Serbia would not require its citizens to be extradited from Kosovo. It is believed this has to do with the non-recognition of Kosovo on the part of Serbia”, Kosovo Police spokesman Daut Hoxha said.

BIRN was unable to confirm the fate of Vulicevqi and Vukadinovic after their release, since Serbia's interior ministry did not respond to requests to provide information.

Kosovo police added that Serbia has never requested an extradition from Kosovo, and “has at times not arrested persons who were wanted by Kosovo authorities”.

“in general, there is a lack of co-operation in investigating various criminal acts, and especially those dealing with investigating cases such as smuggling with immigrants or terrorism”, the spokesman said.

Murder That Was a New Test

Nowhere is the failure of rule of law more evident than in northern Kosovo, part that has not been controlled by Pristina or Belgrade since the end of the war in 1999.

The investigation into the murder of Serbian politician Oliver Ivanovic, killed are his party headquarters in the divided town of Mitrovica in January, is now offering a new test for limited co-operation between the two countries.

“Co-operation in the implementation of the law between Kosovo and Serbia is orchestrated through a jumble of international organisations and semi-involved agreements, all hampered by political antagonisms and lack of confidence”, Bojan Elek, author of a 2015 report about Kosovo- Serbia from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.

EU-mediated talks between the two countries, which began in 2011, have produced some tangible results about issues such as freedom of movement, but these too are often not sufficiently implemented, according to a detailed report by the BIRN Office in Kosovo.

For example, an agreement aimed at preventing Serbia from blocking Kosovo's membership in regional organisations has not stopped Belgrade from opposing Pristina's efforts to join Europol, Interpol and a number of law enforcement organisations.

Neither side has so far, however, tried to establish co-operation on security issues on the agenda of talks in Brussels, according to the EU.

This blockade implies that Pristina remains dependent on international organisations for a large part of law-governing co-operation, causing much anger on Kosovo officials.

Kosovo still depends on the UN Mission, UNMIK, determined as it had just ended the conflict in 1999 to issue international arrest warrants known as red IDs, while the EU's mission to rule of law links with Euopol. Both UNMIK and EULEX are mandated to facilitate communication between the Kosovo police forces and Serbia.

In 2011, Kosovo established an International Law Implementation Unit within the Kosovo Police as part of an EU-backed project to establish a network of such units across the Western Balkans through which forces can co-operate.

While information from the Co-ordination Unit cannot be used as evidence in court, it has resulted in rare co-operation. Following a request by Serbia's police, two murder suspects were arrested in Kosovo for drug dealing, which did not concern Serbia's charges. They were left in the neutral border zone where they were arrested by Serbia's police, says Bojan Elek's report.

After settling in Kosovo in 2008, E ULEX was tasked with managing written communication between Pristina and Belgrade, known as the Second Legal Assistance, and was required to intervene in mediating cases of extradition in and from states that do not recognise Kosovo's independence.

EULEX said failure by both sides to agree on the Second Legal Assistance kept co-operation until 2013, when information began to flow. But the situation again deteriorated in October 2014, when Serbia refused to recognise the handover of the mandate to the Office of the EU Special Representative in Pristina, which it said is not neutral on the issue of Kosovo independence.

Belgrade insisted that requirements should continue to be directed through EULEX, resulting in a period of about 12 months during which communication, at least officially, stopped. This unprecedented road was chosen when Belgrade said it would accept the requirements if they come through the EU Delegation in Belgrade, according to an EU-funded assessment.

But BIRN also found that during this gap, with official requests from the EU Office in Pristina collected in Serbia's Justice Ministry, the applications of at least ten cases of mutual legal assistance have been re-sent to the ministry in Belgrade by EULEX, even though its mandate was technically over.

The “in order to work on several important cases of war crimes and organised crime, with which international prosecutors and judges have been taken, we quietly agreed that EULEX would send a copy of the [requisite] case, while the original was already there at [Serbia's] ” ministry, explained a senior EU official involved in the process.

The same EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that generally all sides have been dissatisfied with legal co-operation between Kosovo and Serbia, adding that while the administrative process has been quick, the transfer of information has been “really slow”.

While EULEX has been successful in carrying out extraditions from some countries that do not recognise Kosovo, such as Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there has been no extradition between Kosovo and Serbia, since Pristina and Belgrade have not yet reached any agreement on the issue.

These administrative problems and unclear lines are again illustrated by recent public statements about Kosovo-Serbia co-operation about Oliver Ivanovic's murder. While Kosovo institutions said there is an exchange of information between the ministries of the two countries and through “international judicial co-operation”, Serbia said EULEX is mediating the transfer of intelligence.

EULEX told BIRN that it is helping in this case by serving as liaison between the Kosovo Police and Serbia's Interior Ministry.

The Kosovo and Serbian justice ministries said they have accepted some information from each other.

A lack of cooperation means lack of justice

Kosovo Special Prosecutor General Reshat Milaku, who is in charge of investigating the most serious cases, including war crimes and high-level corruption, said co-operation between Kosovo prosecutors' offices and Serbia is almost impossible.

“If there is no co-operation, there can be no justice for victims”, Milaku said. “We are constantly seeking co-operation with Serbia's prosecution, not only for war crimes but also in cases of ordine crimes, but they are rejecting”.

“They have requested information about our citizens in Kosovo war crimes cases, but we cannot provide them with such information because this belongs to the responsibility of the Kosovo Prosecutor”.

“Seeing that Serbia has no will to co-operate, we have decided not to respond to their demands”.

But the Ministry of Justice in Belgrade denied allegations that there was no co-operation. In a letter to BIRN, the Ministry's Information Office said: “from last year alone, data showed 316 requests for legal assistance in both directions. The requirements cover all criminal acts, war crimes, organised crime and terrorism”.

In the end, it is important to mention that there are no legal barriers to co-operation, if there is political will”, it says on paper.

“Note that the Ministry of Justice and the so-called state of Kosovo has directly refused to act on demands made by Serbia's Prosecutor in war crimes”, the ministry insisted.

A source from Serbia's judiciary said this statement specifically refers to Serbia's contractive effort to extradite Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, suspected of war crimes by the Serbian prosecution.

Elek predicted that co-operation about the investigation into Ivanovic's murder and the fight against organised crime is unlikely to bear fruit in the current situation.

There are instructions on both sides, as far as I can tell, so the general trust among Kosovo Serbs is that this [ Ivanovic] case will not be resolved, as many have not been solved”, Elek said.

Kosovo and Serbian citizens can't feel calm, and organised crime is flourishing”, he warned.