By Aleksandar Vasovic and Fatos Bytyci
BELGRADE/PRISTINA (Reuters) – A Serbian court on Friday ordered the continued detention and investigation of three Kosovo policemen arrested this week in a border area in disputed circumstances.
Kosovo says the three were arrested inside its territory by Serbian officers who had crossed the border. Belgrade says they were detained inside Serbia.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Serbia’s southwestern city of Kraljevo said it had charged the three policemen with unauthorised production, possession, carrying and trafficking of weapons and explosive substances.
“The judge for the preliminary proceedings of the Higher Court in Kraljevo ordered the detention of all suspects,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Kosovo’s Justice Minister Albulena Haxhiu said the policemen must be released as soon as possible.
“The scenario to further deepening of tensions is continuing from an aggressive Serbia through the autocratic president Vucic,” Haxhiu said in a statement.
Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia with the backing of the West following a 1998-99 war. Serbia still considers Kosovo part of its territory.
The detentions were the latest in a series of incidents that have led to unrest in the area and raised concern of renewed violence between Serbia and Kosovo.
The Kosovo government has called the arrests an act of aggression by Serbia and in retaliation has banned all trucks with Serbian licence plates and Serbian goods from entering its territory.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied the accusations and accused Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti of inciting conflict.
The United States and Britain have urged Kosovo and Serbia to reduce tensions and called for the immediate release of the policemen, while EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borell has called crisis talks with Kurti and Vucic for next week.
A U.S. envoy said the officers did not intentionally cross the border and the “likely scenarios” were that they were abducted from inside Kosovo or “inadvertently crossed the boundary”.
The three “had no intention to be in Serbia and should be released”, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told reporters.
The NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR, which is responsible for maintaining the fragile peace since the war ended, said it had reviewed the location and “based on available input, it remains unclear where the Kosovo police officers were at the time of the arrest”.
“We urge both parties to refrain from provocative rhetoric and to avoid any unilateral act that could escalate the tension in the area,” it said.
Kosovo police said that nine journalists were attacked on Friday in the northern town of Leposavic by masked men who were protesting against a government minister visiting the Albanian mayor.
Police said some of the journalists had sought medical help and that their cameras had been broken.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade, Jonathan Landay in Washington and Fatos Bytyci in Pristina; Editing by Alex Richardson, Angus MacSwan and Nick Macfie)
