Filipovict's secret visit to BIA: Kosovo doubts Serbia is reinstalling police in the north

According to data provided by Radio Free Europe, in four northern Kosovo municipalities with Serb majority since May 11th of this year, Serbia's MPB offices have been deployed, which have been functional until 2013.

According to the same data, MPB's main headquarters will be in Zvecan, near primary school “Vuk Karadzic”.

Free Europe Radio has not been able to confirm this information on the ground or by Serbian institutions.

Serbia had its own security facilities in northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq until 2013. After the deal reached on The Brussels dialogue, They were integrated into Kosovo institutions, mainly in the Kosovo Police.

However, almost all members of the Kosovo Police from the Serb community resigned late last year, rejecting the Kosovo Government's decision to reregister cars running north with signs released by Serbia.

Serbia supported this move, and in exchange it gave everyone Pay contracts the same as they had received from Kosovo institutions.

In those contracts, among other things, it is written that they should work for the benefit of the Serb community.

The “has become quite”, was the words of the then chief of operations in the Kosovo Police for the northern region, Aleksandar Filipovovic, who first removed his uniform.

For such an act, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, has decorated Filipovic with the Golden Medal of Courage Milos Obilic.

Filipovic's Secret Visit to Serbian Police

According to data from a Kosovo security institution in which REL had access, Filipovic has been at a meeting Wednesday, May 10th, at the Information Agency (BIA) facilities in Belgrade.

After that, at Filipovic's order, another former official in Kosovo Police, Goran Zivkovovic, announced to all former police station commanders in the northern municipalities that two Serbian MPB offices in northern Mitrovica will be opened.

Zivkovic is known to the public as commander of the police station in northern Mitrovica, while in May 2022 he informed the opinion that about 60 people were on the list of suspects “for overturning Kosovo constitutional order”.

Otherwise, one office in North Mitrovica would have to function in objects formerly used by Serbia's MPB, while the other in the facility of the Municipal Acting Authority, which works under the Serbian system.

Where else are Serbian MPB offices expected to be?

The data provided by the REL shows that the same offices will be opened in Leposaviq and Zubin Potok, as well as in objects formerly used by Serbia's MPB.

Also, Serbia's MPB presence is also planned in Rudare near Zvecan.

The village of Rudare is located on the main Mitrovica road -- Leposaviq -- and is known for the barricades that have been located there since 2011 in order to prevent Kosovo authorities from establishing power in the north.

REL tried to contact Filipovic and Zivkovovic to verify these claims, but without success.

Also, REL addressed BIA and Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs in demand to confirm or deny this information, but these institutions have not responded to publishing this text.

Neither the Kosovo Ministry of Internal Affairs nor the Government of Kosovo have commented on these claims.

Filipovqi urged Vuciqi security in the north

Former police official Filipovic asked President Aleksandar Vuciq “for additional assistance” from Serbia at a meeting on April 13th in the District.

Vuciq encouraged him to say “open what he requires”.

Filipovic then said Serbs in Kosovo need security.

“We know that you have applied to KFOR for the return of our security forces to Kosovo and Metohija, and we know they have rejected that request because there are many who want to have no Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. So our people, especially today, await your word. President, tell us, show us the way we're going to”, Filipovic said.

“Do not rush”, response Vuciq and added that “there is always time for this”.

Last December, KFOR (NATO military mission in Kosovo) rejected Serbia's request to return 1,000 members of its military and police to Kosovo.

Official Belgrade made that request after tensions and barricades in northern Kosovo.

Such a request was flatly rejected by the US, as Turkish Special American Envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar told Radio Free Europe in an interview last December.

He also said that Kosovo “has very strong security guarantees from the US”.

Following Filipovic's request, at the same meeting in Raska, others asked Vuchiqi to “mbrone”, whom he replied: “E knows that the only news you would enjoy is the entrance of the Serbian Army to Kosovo and Metohija, and I know that basically everything else is of much less interest to”.

Then only then would you feel secure”, Vuciq said, but yet he was “demanded <x3x3> of all patience and peace.

Who is Aleksandar Filipovitch?

This is not the first time Kosovo security authorities have linked Aleksandar Filipovic to Serbian security services.

He has been integrated into the Kosovo Police from Serbia's MPB under the Brussels Agreement.

In December of last year, The REL received information that Filipovic became commander of the Leposaviq Police Station in 2016 at Milan Radojici's request.

Radoicic is deputy chairman of the Serbian List, the largest party of Kosovo Serbs, which has Belgrade's support. A warrant has been issued to him in Kosovo, and the US has put him on the blacklist because of his involvement in international organised crime.

Also, REL had access to data showing Filipoviqi had close ties to Milan Mihajlovic, who was arrested in October 2022 on suspicion that he was involved in the murder of Serbian politician Oliver Ivanovic.

He maintained close contact with Russian representatives in Kosovo, such as Aleksandar Rozlustvenski from the Russian Liaison Office in Kosovo.

According to data from the Kosovo security institution, Filipovic is also known as the “vulin man”.

Aleksandar Vulin is currently director of BIA.