A Serb politician admitted to masterminding the latest gun assault towards Kosovo police earlier this week, based on an announcement made by his lawyer.
The killing of a Kosovo police officer and the following gun battle at a monastery in a village near the Serbian border marked one of many gravest escalations within the former breakaway province in years.
Three Serb gunmen have been killed in an hours-long firefight with Kosovo police after they ambushed a patrol close to the village of Banjska and later barricaded themselves at an Orthodox monastery.
Milan Radoicic – the long-serving vp of the Srpska Lista occasion – stated he led the group of closely armed gunmen into the realm in northern Kosovo in response to alleged repression towards Serbs by the Pristina authorities.
Radoicic insisted that he had acted alone and with out the help or consent of the Serbian authorities.
“I did not inform anyone in the power structures of the Republic of Serbia, nor in the local political structures in northern Kosovo,” wrote Radoicic in a letter learn aloud by his legal professional Goran Petronijevic at a press convention in Belgrade on Friday.
According to his letter, Radoicic stated the killing of a Kosovo police officer within the ambush close to the Serbian border was an “accident.”
“The death of the policeman was accidental and was followed by a fierce confrontation in which our three comrades – the heroes – gave their lives for freedom and for the preservation of Kosovo,” Radoicic wrote.
“We are not terrorists, we are the freedom fighters of our people,” his letter acknowledged, which included his resignation from Srpska Lista.
Earlier this week, Kosovo’s inside minister accused Radoicic of masterminding Sunday’s assault and launched a video allegedly exhibiting the suspect amongst a bunch of armed males on the Banjska monastery.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated this week that Radoicic was in “central Serbia” and that authorities have been ready to query him.
Kosovo’s authorities has accused Belgrade of backing your entire operation, with Prime Minister Albin Kurti writing on social media that the weapons and tools utilized in Sunday’s assault have been “made by Serbian state-owned military arms producers.”
Radoicic – who’s at present beneath U.S. sanctions – has lengthy been a serious powerbroker amongst Serbs in Kosovo’s restive north.
Earlier Friday, Kosovo police fanned out once more throughout the north as they performed an operation that noticed the particular items raid properties linked to Radoicic.
Kosovo, a former province of Serbia that broke away and declared independence in 2008 – a standing Belgrade has refused to acknowledge – has lengthy seen strained relations between its ethnic Albanian majority and its Serb minority inhabitants.
Source: www.dailysabah.com