Weapons smuggling that endangered state security

Missiles, grenade launchers, automatic rifles, military vehicles and explosives are just some of the weapons Kosovo police have said they have captured following the September 24th attack.

How and how long this weapon has been able to enter Kosovo, there are speculations and assessments.

This could also be “for a day”, says former Kosovo Customs Director Naim Huruglica.

For Kosovo institutions, control of the border with Serbia, especially in the north, it is not easy, since generally “is mountainous area”.

They have warned that they will inform the public about the roads that smugglers have used, but when this <x0-> data is available”.

Armed groups of Serbs attacked Kosovo police in Zvecan Banjska on 24 September, killing Sergeant Africa Bulnjaku. In the subsequent clashes, three other attackers of Serbian nationalism were also killed.

What roads may have been used to introduce weapons?

“Banjska as a village relates to a road that is not in a bad condition. It is the shortest way to Serbia's Novi Pazar”, Huruglica says, referring to the street known as Izvor.

According to him, the large arsenal of weapons, of different calibres, could have entered Kosovo in one day.

“That road is able to afford transportation even in trucks”, he says.

According to Huruglica, the cause is also associated with a lack of cross-border co-operation.

The exchange of information is very necessary when two states want to fight smuggling. In the concrete case there is no co-operation from the Serbian side”, he says.

Serbia does not recognise Kosovo's citizenship and continues to consider it its territory. The border with Kosovo is named only as <x0 administrative framework”.

Serbia is not interested in preventing smuggling [in Kosovo]. Instead, it stimulates and increases it”, says former Kosovo Police Director Reshat Maliqi.

Unable to prevent access to this arsenal in Kosovo, “has threatened state security”, he says.

What do Kosovo institutions say?

From Kosovo Customs, they say the weapons have entered from “mountain roads”, but do not provide more details.

Adriatic spokesman Stavileci says Kosovo Customs is exercising control at two border crossings in northern Kosovo, Jarinje and Brnjak, and that it is preventing smuggling of goods.

The green line, which includes areas close to borders, usually creating illegal smuggling routes, Stavileci says it is controlling Kosovo police, and, as necessary, also assists the Antichontraband Units from Kosovo Customs.

Asked how the arming has entered Kosovo, Kosovo Police General Director Gazmend Hoxha said that “is impossible” for that space around the border to be monitored by police “every minute of every second”.

“Terren is difficult, there are very illegal roads that have been opened and opened constantly from Serbia's territory to the border with Kosovo. [Armation] is introduced through an illegal route. Certain groups have been introduced and then approached the village of Banjska. This is what happened in this case”, Hoxha said.

On the day of the attack, on September 24th, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the investigative organs would find out how the large arsenal of weapons on Kosovo territory was introduced, but stressed that the control of the border in the north “is not easy”.

Kosovo's “Border View in the Leposaviqi municipality with our northern neighbour is very long, is generally mountainous. At Zvecani is a border crossing that is agreed [in the context of dialogue on normalising relations with Serbia] in Brussels many years ago, to become an integrated border crossing, but it has never been implemented on the part of Serbia”, Kurti said at the time.

Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on October 1st that, so far, the arsenal of arms has been discovered in Kosovo's territory.

But, “at the moment when [the data] are available to the public, I will inform you”, Svechla said.

“All of our activity is being done in co-ordination with the Kosovo prosecution and we don't want to hurt investigations”, he stressed.

Kosovo and Serbia share a border line of about 400km. Over 60 percent of that line includes Serb-run populated municipalities in northern Kosovo.

The two countries reached agreement in 2011 on integrated border management at several border crossings: Jarinje, Brnjak, Merdare, Mutivoda, Muchibaba and Meheu White.

What was said in Serbia?

The responsibility for the attack on Banjska took over Milan Radociq, former deputy chairman of the Serbian List, the largest party of Kosovo Serbs.

He was acquitted Wednesday of the Supreme Court of Serbia, a day after being detained under suspicion that he has committed a series of acts including arms trafficking and crimes against general security.

The court prevented him from leaving Serbia and forced him to appear at the competent police station twice a month.

According to the Serbian Prosecution, Radoic allegedly “has secured weapons, ammunition and explosive devices with huge destructive powers from Tuzla to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from January 2023 to September 24th”.

Later, those “ai weapons have been transported and stored at indefinite locations on Kosovo territory, where it has hidden them in abandoned objects and forest”, the prosecution said.

Radojic denied these works.

Continued smuggling

Even in the months before the attack on Banjska, Kosovo police came out several times with reports of arms seizures and ammunition in the north.

In June, she said she has discovered a large quantity of weapons, explosives and various ammunition in a Belgrade license car about 100m from the Zvecan municipality.

All these tools were aimed at realising terrorist attacks on Kosovo citizens and institutions”, Interior Minister Svecla said at the time.

In early September, it was also announced for arms seizures from a house owned by a Serb in Zvecan.

During a debate in the British Parliament about two months ago, lawmaker Alicia Kearns said that north of Kosovo “arms are smuggled into ambulances and then stored in church objects”.

These claims, the Serbian Orthodox Church dismissed them, while Kosovo authorities said they are verifying them.

According to Kosovo Police data, 1,473 illegal firearms, of various types, were confiscated in 2022 with about 30 thousand ammunition from various calibres.

The penalty for illegal possession is determined with the Kosovo Criminal Code, which envisions fines of up to 7,500 euros, or prison sentences of up to five years.

What is the solution?

“Discilated electronic equipment is very important to identify smuggling, and for this we are in the process of tendering some equipment that will facilitate work”, says Customs spokesperson, Adriatic Stavileci.

Similarly, the former director of this institution, Huruglica, says that there should be larger human and technical resources.

It cites fears or helicopters border monitoring as an option.

According to former police director Maliqi, the best solution for combating smuggling, especially in the north, would be the best co-ordination of Kosovo authorities with the NATO mission in Kosovo, KFOR, and with the European mission to rule the law, EULEX.

Besides co-ordinating with these two mechanisms, better co-operation with the citizens of the area is needed. We should have greater communication with the citizen and increase the number of patrols [police]”, he says.

KFOR, which is responsible for the border line between Kosovo and Serbia, told Radio Free Europe that law enforcement is “exclusive representation of the Kosovo Police”. / REL