Gifts allegedly receiving officials arrested in exchange for issuing construction permits in Brezovica

Nikollic and nine other people were arrested Tuesday under suspicion of misuse of office, authorities in Kosovo suggested.

The prosecutor of the case, Rasim Maloku, during a news conference, said Nikollic and other detainees allegedly received villas, cars and other gifts in exchange for issuing permits for building villas and other facilities at the Sharr Mountains National Park, where Brezovica is located.

The former head of the Sterpce municipality has allegedly received over a million euros. There are allegedly several villas that have been benefited as gifts, cars that were taken as gifts for issuing permit”, Maloku said.

According to Malokut, most of the buildings built are illegally built.

The encrypted action “Brezovica”, according to the Prosecution in Ferizaj, has been held at 12 locations in the region of Ferizaj, Pristina and Shtrpce. According to authorities, eight of those arrested are from the Ferizaj region and two from Pristina.

Meanwhile, Agron Haziri, chief of grave crimes, said that cash cash in cash at over 61 thousand euros, eight cars worth 300 thousand euros, as well as various coins, including dollars, Macedonian denars, Serbian dinars and other currency. Suspects have also been found with pistols and rifles, as well as equipment to produce cryptovatlutes.

The chief prosecutor of the Constitutional Prosecutor in Ferizaj, Shukri Jashari, said authorities would temporarily seize all properties, including villas, if proven they were built without permission.

Regarding the arrests in Kosovo, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, who has promised judicial assistance to those arrested.

Shterpca is one of six Serb majority municipalities south of the Iber River in Kosovo.

Topping it, from its founding in 2009 to the end of November 2021, was Nikollic, from the ranks of the Serbian List.

This is the main party of Serbs in Kosovo, which enjoys the support of official Belgrade.

Nikollic, before joining the Serbian List in 2013, was chairman of Shrpca from the ranks of the Independent Liberal Party, which early in 2020 declared political mortorium as a result of the total domination of the Serbian List.

The arrests reacted to the Serbian List, which said it condemns the excessive use of force “and the “acion brutal” that was conducted in the municipality of Shrpca.

Especially disturbing is the fact that during this action, with statements from the ground, police have prevented movement, entry and exit from the Council of Shtrpce, ordinary people, including those in need of medical assistance”, the Serbian List statement said.

Vuciq, said that [Serbia's] <x0th state will provide judicial assistance to” to all those arrested in the Shrpca municipality.

Speaking to reporters in Tirana, where he participated in the “Open Balkans initiative summit”, Vuciq said Pristina “has said from the beginning that criminals live in northern Kosovo”, but added that there are now “appear to be some [even] in the south”.

“I just don't know how they [the officials in Kosovo] found no more serious criminals along the way, only among Serbs”, Vuciq said.

The director of the Office for Kosovo in Serbia's Government, Petar Petkovovic, said it is “another brutal attempt to intimidate the Serb people in Kosovo” and “a new terror of Prime Minister Albin Kurti”.

Who else was arrested?

Pos Nikollich, Kosovo Police, at the State Prosecutor's Order, arrested about ten people in Shtrpce, among whom the director of Urbanisation and several company officials and owners, announced the Constitutional Prosecutor at Ferizaj.

They are suspected of criminal acts: bribery and misuse of office.