The only three suspects arrested so far in Kosovo for the deadly attack on police by a Serb armed group in the northern village of Banjska in September 2023 pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
Xhorxhina Bami, October 9, 2024
Left to right: Blagoje Spasojevic, Vladimir Tolic and Dusan Maksimovic at Pristina Basic Court on October 9, 2024. Photo: BIRN
Three Kosovo Serbs, Blagoje Spasojevic, Vladimir Tolic and Dusan Maksimovic, the only people arrested so far for the deadly attack in September 2023 that left one police officer dead in the village of Banjska in the north of Kosovo, pleaded not guilty at the Pristina Basic Court on Wednesday.
Spasojevic and Tolic, who were arrested at the scene, did not enter pleas but Judge Arben Hoti said the court “considered the defendants pleaded not guilty”. Maksimovic, who was arrested the following day, pleaded not guilty himself.
The three are charged with terrorism and with endangering the constitutional order of the country.
The indictment, which BIRN has seen, claims the three detainees, together with 41 other accused, started the attack by first blocking the main bridge in Banjska village with trucks.
Prosecutor Naim Abazi told the court that most of the group “entered the Republic of Kosovo from the Republic of Serbia in an organised manner through the mountain roads with dozens of cars filled with weapons”.
He added that the defendants then “hid and took up their positions” and attacked the Kosovo Police officers as soon as they arrived at the scene, as they were checking the trucks, initially believing smugglers had put them there.
According to the indictment, security camera footage shows a group of heavily armed people approaching the bridge having arrived in two Mercedes cars, both owned – prosecutors say – by Kosovo Serb kingpin Milan Radoicic. Shortly after, police reinforcements arrived in two vehicles.
In an explosion that followed, Police officer Afrim Bunjaku was killed and his colleague Alban Rashiti was wounded. The autopsy report identified the deadly weapon as a Yugoslav-made MRUD anti-personnel mine.
Abazi told the court that the defendants’ overall plan was to “separate” Kosovo’s four Serb-majority northern municipalities “to join them with the Republic of Serbia”.
On September 25, Judge Arben Hoti separated the case against Spasojevic, Tolic and Maksimovic from that of Radoicic and the 40 other defendants and one company owned by one of the defendants.
The Basic Court on September 25 asked Kosovo’s Supreme Court to rule on whether Radoicic and 41 others can be tried in absentia.
Judge Hoti said the Court will be asked whether the trial may be held in absentia even though the accused were not present at the initial hearing.
Radoicic has taken sole responsibility for leading and organising the Banjska attack. He is now in Serbia, and has made no further public comment about the indictment.
Radoicic, together with his business partner, Radule Stevic, and his company, RAD D.O.O., are also charged with money-laundering.
Radoicic is also charged with financing terrorism. According to the indictment, Radoicic had been financing the criminal activities of a “structured terrorist group” since 2017. This included the purchase of heavy weapons and military uniforms.
The indictment also alleges that Radoicic rallied local Serbs against any step taken by Kosovo’s authorities and deemed undesirable by Belgrade, mounting roadblocks and barricades.
He is also being investigated by prosecutors in Serbia for organising an armed group, the unauthorised amassing of a large cache of weapons, which he transported to Kosovo, and for “serious crimes against general security”.
In October last year, a Belgrade court refused to detain Radoicic but ordered him not to leave the country and confiscated his passport.
Copyright BIRN 2007