Two years without indictment for Banjska in Serbia: Belgrade Address Radoicic

That confirms a Supreme Court response in Belgrade, given Radio Free Europe, where Radojici is said to have extended the move of stopping Serbia from leaving Serbia, with the obligation to appear in police at 1 and 15 per month.

The court decisions are delivered regularly to defendants at the settlement's registered address, on the territory of the city of Belgrade”, the Supreme Court reportedly reads. Periscope.

It also says that Radoic respects the measures and that for the last time it was presented in the competent police “station, Savski Venac”, on September 15th of this year.

In response, Radojciqi's address is not specified, but on the territory of this central municipality in Belgrade are luxurious villas and buildings owned by companies and persons associated with it.

The former deputy president of the Serbian List ʹ the largest party of Serbs in Kosovo was released after questioning in Belgrade in October 2023, while at the end of 2024, the chief prosecutor warned of setting up the indictment.

Nearly a year later, the prosecution did not answer Radio Free Europe's question about what prevented the decision.

The Prosecutor's Office works under political pressure and under the influence of authorities. This is certainly one of the reasons why we still don't have an indictment”, says REL Maja Bllosh from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.

Unlike Radoicic, who has not appeared in public since accepting organisation of the Banjska attack, in which Sergeant Africa Bulnjak was killed.

Others from the Kosovo indictment for this attack were seen this summer “preserving the position of Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq's work during massive anti-government protests.

Silence in Belgrade

The verdict on the indictment will be made at the end of this year or early next year”, Supreme Prosecutor's Chief Prosecutor in Belgrade Nenad Stefanovic said in early December 2024.

He confirmed to the portal “Cosovo Online” that during the investigation for “the event in Banjska”, the Prosecutor in Serbia has conducted over 40 procedural actions.

Since then, he did not make any other statements, while the prosecution did not answer the REL's continuing questions about when the verdict on the indictment could be expected, what was revealed during the investigation and what measures were taken.

In Serbia, Radoic was suspected of a serious crimes against general security”, as well as “production, possession and illegal trafficking of weapons”.

Kosovo, on the other hand, characterises the attack on Banjska as a terrorist, where a policeman was killed.

According to the indictment set up in Kosovo, Radocic and others involved in the attack are charged with violations of constitutional order and actions against Kosovo's legal system.

The incident includes 45 people, and only three of them who were arrested in Kosovo are being tried before the court in Pristina.

Others are on the run, and Interpol issued a warrant for arrest for them in December 2023.

Even though Kosovo asks the international community to put pressure on Serbia, Belgrade refuses to extradite the accused, saying they would be tried in Serbia.

I don't expect these persons to be prosecuted in the near future, as it turns out they enjoy protection from the state and are some of the government's main partners in implementing various infrastructure projects”, says Belarus.

We have also seen that those who have participated in the Banjska attack today lead groups that fear the citizens of Serbia”, she adds.

People in search, in front of Serbian president's headquarters

During an antigovernmental protest in Serbia, which continues since the deadly accident at Novi Sad's Rail Station in November last year, police guarded the Serbian Presidency building and the surrounding park in downtown Belgrade, where for months they remained supporters of power.

Also nearby were groups of men with olive - shirts.

Free Europe radio identified in this group Vadicir Vucetijqi from Northern Mitrovica, who is accused by the Kosovo Prosecutor for the attack on Banjska.

Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs did not answer REL questions about Vucetici, nor about claims that in the group in front of the presidency building there were three more people from fugitives in Kosovo: Milorad Jevtic Miko, Zarko Cvetkovic and Vukasin Jarediq.

I have the impression that the state, basically, supports criminals, not justice”, says Belarus.

Charged State Business

A REL research revealed that millions of euros from Serbia's budget have gone to the company's account for involvement in the armed attack in Kosovo.

The company “Rad 028”, which is owned by businessman from northern Kosovo Radule Steviq, received about 30m euros of state contracts, mainly for infrastructure projects and others in Kosovo's majority Serb municipalities.

About 65 tenders were awarded to this company by the provisional Serbian municipal organs, which were operating in Kosovo by 2024.

Kosovo authorities later closed them, as they considered them illegal, but the company continued its activities from alternative locations in the border cities of Serbia.

Stevic is wanted by Interpol, while the Kosovo Special Prosecutor charges him with money laundering. He, according to the indictment in Kosovo, has helped Radocichi hide the origin of the money through his company.

Radojciq himself, according to official data from the trade registry in Serbia, currently has no company in his name in this country.

It emerged from the company's ownership “Incope” and its subsidiary firms in 2023, after publicly acknowledging that he was organising the armed attack on Banjska.

His share in “Incope” and linked companies donated it to business partners, the Zvonko brothers and Zarko Wesselinovic.

REL research showed that these companies, over the years, have received lucrative construction contracts, which were also paid from the state budget.

Radoicic, Stevic and the Veselinovic brothers are under sanctions from the United States, having been suspected of links to international organised crime.

Some speak Kosovo arrests

In addition to the attack on Banjska, Radoic is linked to several crimes in Kosovo, including the murder of Serbian opposition politician Oliver Ivanovic.

Pristina, so far, has issued five warrants for its recent arrest in June for the establishment of barricades in four majority Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo in 2022.

Kosovo is also looking for Radoichi for crimes during the 1999 war.

Radoic allegedly was in a group of Serbs who killed 106 Albanian civilians in Gjakova.

Their troops were later found in a mass grave near Belgrade.

The Prosecutor's Office in Serbia for War Crimes did not answer Radio Free Europe's question if it has investigated those charges.

Arrest in Serbia for “the assassination of attacker”

While Radoicic and other perpetrators of the attack in Banjska remain at large, Kosovo citizen Arbnor Spahiu is in prison in Serbia.

He was arrested on June 7th at the border checkpoint between Hungary and Serbia, while returning by bus from Austria to Kosovo, along with his family.

The Supreme Court in Subotica ordered his detention, under suspicion of “grave murder” in the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo.

In the shootout that followed the attack on Banjska, Kosovo police killed three Serb attackers, and Belgrade accuses Spahiu of killing them.

Our “services should have a record of each of them... of these terrorists from Kosovo. We need to find out wherever there are”, former Serbian Prime Minister and leader of Serbia's ruling Serbian Progressive Party Milos Vuchev said after the arrest.

However, he gave no evidence of charges against Spahi.

Kosovo police confirmed to Radio Free Europe that Spahiu has voluntarily left police in 2022, while Kosovo authorities called for his release.

Arbnor Spahiu's family urged Kosovo institutions and the international community to pressure Belgrade.

We hope that he will be released as soon as possible, because the charges against him do not stand. We demand that Kosovo institutions and international factors be involved in the issue, in order to exert pressure on Belgrade to free Arbnor”, one of his family members told Radio Free Europe.

Spahiu is one of several former Kosovo police officers and policemen who have been arrested in Serbia in recent years.

What do they say in Brussels and Washington?

Since the attack on Banjska, the European Union has urged Serbia to prosecute those responsible.

He did not respond to Radio Free Europe's request to comment on the fact that Serbia has not filed any charges for two years now.

REL's questions on the matter were not even answered by the American State Department.

US Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar's former deputy minister, declared in March 2017 that the US is investigating Serbia's ties with the attack on Banjska.

“We think Serbia has some financial and organisational ties, but we are investigating this in more detail”, Escobar said in an interview for Radio Free Europe.

He said Serbia is not required to conduct investigations, but responsibility.

Nikola Burazer, from the nongovernmental Centre for Contemporary Policy in Serbia, estimates that this subject “has not left the agenda”.

The Banjska issue has always been much more important for European actors than for Serbia”, he tells Radio Free Europe.

Burazer also remembers that some EU member states insist on the judgment of Radojici and others responsible for Banjska, as condition of unblocking Serbia's EU membership negotiations.

Serbia has not opened a chapter since December 2021.

The main obstacle is Belgrade's refusal to support sanctions against Russia, due to Ukraine's invasion.

“Banjska is one of several major problems in relations between Serbia and the European Union ʹ including the way democratic institutions operate here, the foreign policy dispute with European Union policy, relations with Russia and China, and so on”, Burazer says.

European rapporteur for Serbia Tonino Picaula warned in a report to the European Parliament in February that “will have to be introduced immediate justice for the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Banjska, including the prosecution of Radojicqi”.

Burazer does not expect more pressure from Brussels, nor does it expect the deployment of punitive measures against Serbia, in which Kosovo insists.

There are many things member states expect from Serbia, and there are no consequences except that they do not open the negotiating chapters [for EU membership]. Authorities in Serbia, so far, have proved to be quite immune to these types of pressures, because commitment to European integration is largely declarative”, Burazer says.

One of the conditions for Serbia's progress towards EU membership is normalising relations with Kosovo.

Since the attack on Banjska, on September 24, 2023, no meeting was held in Brussels between the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia, under negotiations mediated by the European Union.

The latest round of dialogue at the chief negotiator level ended in mid-September without any progress. /Radio Europe Free/