Kosovo calls on internationals: Pressure should be exerted on Serbia over the alleged kidnapping of Vukasinovic

2025-11-07 20:47:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Kosovo calls on internationals: Pressure should be exerted on Serbia over the

Acting Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla called on the international community to increase pressure on Belgrade on Friday, following the alleged wounding and kidnapping of a Kosovo Serb by Serbian Gendarmerie on Kosovo soil last week. Sveçla visited the site where Milan Vukashinovi? from Leposavic was allegedly kidnapped near the border with Serbia.

It is suspected that Vukašinovi? was injured and then kidnapped on November 1 in the village of Jellakce near Leposavic, before being taken to the Prokuplje hospital, and later to the Niš Clinical Center.

"Today I inspected the part of the state border where our citizen was allegedly kidnapped ," Sveçla wrote on Facebook in a post to which he also attached a photograph.

He added that, based on data and evidence "provided by our authorities, it is now known that by violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo, Mr. Vukašinovi? was kidnapped by Serbian structures as an opponent of the Serbian List."

Serbia has not spoken about the case even after a week. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has asked the Serbian Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense about the incident, but has not received a response.

A day earlier, lawyer Ivan Ninic said he filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dragana Vukašinovi?, Vukašinovi?'s mother, at the High Public Prosecutor's Office in Prokuplje, Serbia, for the criminal offense of attempted aggravated murder.

He said that, since the Serbian state has been silent so far, he filed a lawsuit against unknown persons, members of the Serbian Army, or the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, or Milan Radoi?i?, former deputy leader of the Serbian List, who had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on the Kosovo Police in Zve?an in 2023.

The criminal complaint, which Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has had access to, states that Vukashinovic had a long history of personal conflicts with Milan Radoicic, and that "there are justifiable reasons to believe that the injured party has been kidnapped and is at risk of being taken away under unclear circumstances."

Sve?la stressed on Friday that Serbia "is proving itself every day more and more not only as an aggressor state towards its neighbors, but also as an essentially anti-democratic state, since Mr. Vukašinovi? is still being denied the legal protection that is guaranteed by law even in the most dictatorial countries."

"I appeal to the international community to increase pressure and take measures against the Serbian state, in order to punish this destabilizing behavior, but also to prevent other situations that would raise tensions in the region," he added.

Kosovo police said two days after the incident that they had questioned eyewitnesses, who had provided information that "masked persons had entered the territory of Kosovo, injured and kidnapped the victim, and then sent him to the territory of Serbia."

Vukašinovi? was employed by the Kosovo Insurance Bureau at the border crossing in Jarinje, in northern Kosovo.

Radio Free Europe, using forensic facial identification tools, has confirmed that Vukašinovi? is the same person who on June 28 of this year had spoken publicly about the pressures he had faced, in an interview with journalist and former Serbian MP Nemanja Šarovi?, for the Serbian television station KTV.

During that interview, he stated that Serbs were forced to leave Kosovo institutions in November 2022 under pressure from the Serbian List, and that he himself had been a victim of pressure, adding that he did not feel safe traveling to Serbia because he had refused to resign.

"They have slandered me about many things, they have linked me to Albanians, I am not sure about traveling to Serbia. I am here in Kosovo, I bypass Serbia," he said. /REL