How do citizens from the Serbian community view Milan Radocichi?

It does not represent Kosovo Serbs”, the Kosovo Government's spokesman for Kosovo Free Europe, Kryeziu, told Radio Free Progress.

Radio Free Europe has demanded from the Government of Kosovo its position after a series of almost identical statements by the mayors of ten majority Serb municipalities in Kosovo, who come from the ranks of the Serbian List, which came to the defense of Milan Radojiciqi, deputy chairman of this list, who is wanted by Kosovo authorities and is on the US blacklist because of his involvement in international organised crime. By their actions they are proving that they themselves are not free. They are under full control of Belgrade and have now recently been brought to the forefront of the protection of criminal gangs in the country's north, while its leaders are on the US Treasury blacklist and in search of our tracking institutions”, Kryeziu added.

The Serbian List, the leading Kosovo Serb party, which has the backing of official Belgrade, except for absolute local power, also participates in the work of the Government of Kosovo and has ten seats in the Assembly, reserved for the Serb community.

The Serbian list is not in the ruling coalition, but is part of Albin Kurti's government, because the Constitution of Kosovo guarantees minority participation in Government. The chairman of that party, Goran Rakic, heads the Ministry for Communities and Kthim. He has not responded to Radio Free Europe calls regarding the Government's statement.

How did the chain reaction “come to the defense of Radojici?

Serbian List officials reacted after Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq said on 11 August that Kosovo authorities are “preparing liquidation” of Serbs in northern Kosovo and urged them not to try to do so.

Serbia's president, as well, said he knows what Kosovo security services plans are and that's what it is about liquidation.

I, simply, am asking them not to plan to do it”, he said.

Shortly after those statements, Serbian List Chairman Goran Rakic has reacted with claims that Kosovo Interior Minister Jhelal Svecla, “without any evidence has attacked the deputy chairman of the Serbian List, Milan Radojic, Serbia's state and President Aleksandar Vuciq”.

A day earlier (August 10th), in an interview for N1 from Beogard, Svechla had said Kosovo's north was HINA El Dorado for criminals in the previous 20 years.

He had also spoken about how Radojic enjoys the direct support of Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, and that Kosovo has evidence that he has entered Kosovo illegally and that he has been one of the organisers of the last barricades, which were established on July 31st.

The fact that Radoic was present at the barricades was confirmed by the Srpska List itself on August 3rd.

The Ministry of Svecla, as well, in an interview for Radio Free Europe in mid-July, had declared Milan Radojic is one of the leaders of the criminal structures behind attacks on Plicia in northern Kosovo.

Due to a <x0) technical error”, identical reports

Following Vuciqi's address on 11 August, reports came from the mayors of Serb majority municipalities. One after another. Among the first to arrive has been Ranillug's president's statement, Katarina Ristic-Iliq, in which statements to Radoicik “are said to be not an attack on him as an individual, but an attack on anyone who is not ready to be Pristina's humble servant”.

The identical reaction came from Gracanica Mayor Lilana Shubariq, literally like Ristic-Ilic.

After a controversy began in the Serbian media in Kosovo that “which municipality chairman copied the announcement”, Ristic -Ilic sent the new communiqué, arguing that “there has been a technical error”.

Its new “statement is said to be “attacks on every Serb, whether you live in the south or north”, and that they promote interethnic intolerance.

Other announcements of Serb majority mayors had similar content. Their focus has been that a “antiserbe policy is being led against Serbs, and that “Milan Radoici is not a criminal, but a man who politically fights for the interests of his people”.

Miftarian: Support for Radoichi, Bad Message for Those Who Disobey Law Rule

The executive director of the Kosovo Institute for Justice, Ehat Miftaraj, estimates that the Government of Kosovo should call directly and warn the Serbian List that it dares not offer support to Milan Radoicqi or any other person wanted by security institutions. He estimates that Radoichi's support from the Serbian List is at the expense of the Serb community living in Kosovo and, to the benefit of those in the north who refuse to respect the rule of law and the very government of Kosovo.

He emphasises that Radovici and other criminals move freely from Serbia to Kosovo because they have official Belgrade's support and adds that the international community's response is needed for that. Kosovo's “justice institutions and the Special Prosecutors have not shown full functionality in the past when it comes to Radociqi. Therefore we are in this situation, it somewhat moves freely from Serbia to Kosovo, tries to undermine police and judicial institutions. Now it is the turn of the Kosovo Police, intelligence services and other sources to find a way to arrest Radoichi when he returns to northern Kosovo to bring him to justice”, Miftaraj says.

However, he stresses that it is not easy to arrest Radovici as long as he has the backing of the Serbian List and official Belgrade.

Janjiq: Russia benefits from Radojcik Dusan Ynjiq's actions by the Belgrade Forum for Ethnic Relations believes that Serbian List reports have been written in the Office for Kosovo of the Government of Serbia and that this is a method to remind “stalinism and post-war policies”.“How did Radoici suddenly become the sole symbol of the political unity of Serbs in Kosovo? This is the problem for Vuciqi, it's a problem for Rakiqiqi, for Srpska List, for the Serb community and beyond. This is no unity now. Someone has ordered, wrote Petkoviqi [the director of the Office], and these reports show us that the level of political development of Serbs in northern Kosovo is shameful”, Janjiq says.

However, he notes that Radovici should not only be seen as a criminal, because it would be “a dangerous political game”.

It shows that Radoiciqi in the pro-government Serbian and Russian media is represented as someone who began the fight for the liberation of Serbs in northern Kosovo”.

The first-looking “beneficiary, from Radojici's move, is Russia, in this case that Russian war machine and its propaganda. I don't know what the interest of the Serbian people is”, says Janjic.

How do citizens from the Serbian community view Milan Radocichi?

Northern Mitrovica residents, one of the four Serb majority municipalities in the north, mostly stand in defense of Milan Radojici, even though at least those who want to talk about it, do it on condition of anonymity.

Of course, Radovici is neither a criminal nor a thief, nor a million percent nothing. So, these heads of ours stood up for their homes and their children, and their neighbors and nothing else”, says one of them. Another says Radovici is “one of us in the north” and that the Serbian List should protect him.

I think what you do and what you represent this nation protects the nation is right. The people just trust that man, he's stood by the people, and that's it, the”.

In the largest Serb majority municipality south of Ibri, Gracanica near Pristina, citizens shake their heads only with the mention of Milan Radojici and do not want to comment on the efforts of their political representatives to protect “from” it by Kosovo authorities.

Those who agree to speak, like their countrymen in northern Kosovo, demand that their identity not be revealed.

So one of them says that everyone is addressing Milan Radojic with a request to help out and that he thinks he's a man who actually asks about everything. It protects those who have been helped, it has not helped me at all. We called him once and he said we'd see. He never did anything for me, while I only asked for a job”, says this citizen of Gracanica.

However, at the end of the conversation, he adds:

We're Serb again, let's... we're a little bit stuck, I don't want to attack, but I say what I've got in mind”

Why is Milan Radojic's defence controversial?

For Milan Radocicin in Kosovo, there is an active warrant because of his involvement in the “Brezovica”, in which there are “fears witnesses during the criminal procedure”. In that case, people are accused of misusing the official position in terms of granting construction permits at the Brezovica ski centre.

He has so far managed to avoid arrest twice in Kosovo in March of this year by escaping from the Brnjak border checkpoint in northern Kosovo and in November of 2018, when Kosovo Police have conducted an action in the north, aimed at arresting suspects in the murder of Serbian opposition politician Oliver Ivanovic.

Several people were then arrested, but Milan Radoic was not in his apartment during this police action.

Kosovo's prosecution links Milan Radociqi to Ivanovic's murder, but no indictment has been directly filed against him, because Kosovo's laws prohibit him for persons who are not available to the prosecution bodies.

Meanwhile, just a few months after the assassination of Oliver Ivanovic, Serbian List Vice President Milan Radociq was elected.

Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, has on several occasions spoken of Radociqi as one of those protecting Serbia in Kosovo.

Also, in December 2021, the US Ministry of Finance put Milan Radocicin, Zvonko Veselinovic, his brother Zarko and ten other related persons on the list. Zvonko Veselinovic is considered the organiser of the barricades in northern Kosovo, and as Serbia's “protector”.

The US ministry's clarification reportedly has been deputy to Zvonko Veselinovic and leader of an organised criminal group, when Veselinovic was withdrawn briefly.

Milan Radociq has been known for judicial authorities in Serbia since 2011.

He and Zvonko Veselinovic were charged with misusing 32 trucks of the Hippo Alpe Adria Leasing company.

In Serbia, both were legally acquitted in 2016.