Kosovo Serb Leader Held Over War Crimes

Ivanovic is being held “as an alleged suspect in an ongoing war crimes investigation, together with allegations of aggravated murder after the conflict”, the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, said in a statement. Nebojsa Vlajic, Ivanovic's lawyer, said his client was arrested in the northern town of Mitrovica and taken to Pristina on Tuesday where he was remanded in custody for 30 days. As well as the war crimes allegations, Ivanovic is suspected of involvement in violence in 2000 in which ten Kosovo Albanians were killed and many more wounded and driven from their homes. Ivanovic at the time was a leading "Bridge Watcher", one of the hardline Serbs who patrolled the main bridge in Mitrovica dividing the town into Serbian and Albanian sectors. But his lawyer described the allegations as "ridiculous, invented, and nonsensical"."Ivanovic could not have done and did not do what he is being charged with... there is no evidence there," Vlajic said. After being part of the Bridge Watchers, Ivanovic later took a more moderate line, and in 2001, he headed the Serbian government's Coordination Body for southern Serbia, entrusted with overseeing the integration of the Albanian minority there into the political and economic mainstream. In Serbia’s Democrat-led government from 2008 to 2012, he was State Secretary in the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Ivanovic voluntarily presented himself to police in northern Mitrovica on Monday when a EULEX prosecutor told him he was a suspect in a war crimes investigation. Following the interview, the prosecutor issued an order for his arrest. Late on Monday, several dozen supporters and councillors from Ivanovic's Srbija, Demokratija, Pravda (Serbia, Justice, Democracy) party, held a protest in front of the police station. In the November local elections in Kosovo, Ivanovic stood for mayor in Mitrovica but was beaten by Krstimir Pantic, from the Serbian government-backed Srpska list.