One Kosovo Serb released, Belgrade calls on Eulex to present evidence for arrests

"Experience has shown that Serbs have been arrested in the past by the Kosovo police and international authorities on the basis of false information, with no real evidence, after which they were set free...such arrests can only heat up the situation for Serbs in Kosovo, creating even more fear and insecurity", the ministry said.

One of the five Kosovo Serbs has been released after it was established that he had been mistaken for another person.

The news of Dobrivoje Trajkovic's release from custody was confirmed by Novo Brdo Deputy President Bojan Cvetkovic. He said that Trajkovic had told him that he had been freed after it turned out there had been a case of mistaken identity.

A EULEX spokeswoman could not say for sure when this would happen exactly. EULEX police arrested the five Serbs at the behest of the EULEX prosecutor, who is conducting a criminal investigation into war crimes committed against the civilian population in Kosovo in April 1999.

Dobrivoje Trajkovic, Slobodan and Srecko Martinovic from Plavica and Srdjan Filic from Jasenovik were arrested on suspicion of war crimes.

Svetlana Stojanovic from Bostana was arrested for obstructing the police during yesterday's operation headed by EULEX, with the assistance of the Kosovo Police and KFOR troops.

Kosovo Police spokesman Arber Beka has said that two of the suspects are KPS officers. He said that all candidates were vetted before being accepted, but that did not mean they could not subsequently charged with a crime.

Speaking to Beta, Beka confirmed that one was a former and the other a serving officer, adding that it was the first time members of the Kosovo police had been arrested.

"We treat them as suspects until the court's final decision," said the spokesman.

He added that the police had recently arrested a police commander who was suspected of having committed crimes prior to joining the police.

Мeanwhile, Kosovo State Secretary Oliver Ivanovic has asked EULEX for an explanation for the arrests.

Speaking to B92, he said that he feared that "the arrest was rather politically motivated," stating that he was very familiar with the region, and that he had never heard of any Serb crimes in Novo Brdo. He recalled, however, the murders of Serbs in Stari Grac and Gorazdevac, stating that no-one had ever been prosecuted for those crimes.

"The first thing the ministry did was to send a strongly-worded letter asking for an explanation," said Ivanović.

"We wouldn't like that to be seen as interfering in the investigation, but it's very strange that, notwithstanding the many crimes committed against Serbs between 1999 and today, EULEX begins by arresting these Serbs in Novo Brdo on the basis of this rather dubiously cobbled-together indictment, so to speak," the state secretary surmised.

"The worst thing is that we've had very unpleasant experiences, as these cases where people have been detained, arrested and held in custody for a few months, some for over a year, before being released without any explanation, have happened in the past," he explained.

"I'm afraid that this'll be a politically motivated arrest. I'd like to be proved wrong, but I think this arrest is fairly politically motivated, because EULEX has a serious situation in Pristina, and the Kosovo Albanians and their political leadership haven't received them with a great deal of enthusiasm. They've had serious incidents and clashes, and now they're trying to even things up by arresting a few Serbs," Ivanovic reflected.