BELGRADE (AFP) – The leader of a fatal attack on Kosovo police has been ordered to report regularly to Serbian authorities but they have not filed charges against him, officials said yesterday
Exactly one year ago, Milan Radoicic led about 30 gunmen who ambushed a Kosovo police patrol in the Serbian village of Banjska near the two countries’ common border. One officer was killed in the assault that Radoicic has admitted to leading.
Kosovo charged him in absentia but Serbian authorities, who briefly detained and then released Radoicic, have not pressed charges.
The Kosovo government, which has sought his extradition, has accused the government in Belgrade of trying to shield Radoicic from prosecution.
Serbian officials said the case should be heard in “Serbian courts”.
“Radoicic was questioned in Belgrade on October 3, when his passport was confiscated,” a representative of the Belgrade Higher Court told AFP yesterday.
“He was ordered not to leave Serbia or travel to Kosovo… and to report to the police on the first and 15th of each month.”
The Serbian public prosecutor added that the investigation into Radoicic was “ongoing”.
After the ambush on September 24, 2023, Radoicic’s group barricaded themselves into an Orthodox monastery near Banjska.
Fierce exchanges ensued with Kosovo security forces that left three gunmen dead. The others escaped across the border into Serbia.
Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, is mainly populated by ethnic Albanians. But they are outnumbered by ethnic Serbs in several northern districts.
Animosity has persisted since a war in the 1990s between Serbia’s armed forces and ethnic Albanians seeking independence for Kosovo.
