UN Seeks Arrest of Kosovo Serb Leader

09/08/2002

UN police attempted to arrest Kosovo Serb leader Milan Ivanovic late Wednesday night (7 August).Ivanovic, who leads the Serb National Council for northern Kosovo, was not at home and escaped arrest.

(Reuters, AP, BBC, RFE/RL, Radio B92 - 08/08/02)

UN police tried but failed to arrest Kosovo Serb leader Milan Ivanovic, who has been charged with attempted murder. A hospital doctor, he chairs the Serb National Council for northern Kosovo, a party believed to have played a role during an April riot in which 22 mainly Polish peacekeepers were injured.

French troops and UN police, backed by two armoured vehicles and a helicopter, raided Ivanovic's home in Mitrovica late Wednesday night (7 August). Only his elderly mother was home at the time.

A statement by UNMIK said that, at the request of an international prosecutor, an international investigating judge had issued a warrant for Ivanovic's arrest on 30 July. UNMIK said Ivanovic was aware of the warrant and urged the Serb leader to turn himself in.

Ivanovic said he had not decided yet whether to surrender. "I'll make a decision after talking seriously with lawyers and members of my family," he said. He denied having been handed the indictment on 30 July, claiming he had instead been requested either to turn himself in voluntarily and "be locked up in the Mitrovica prison" or become a fugitive from what he termed "an Albanian" law.

Ivanovic described the attempt to arrest him as politically motivated and accused UNMIK head Michael Steiner of seeking to force the local Serb population to flee ahead of the 26 October local elections. He warned that the move to arrest to him "could have very grave consequences" and invited the authorities in Belgrade "to join in and discuss these things." UNMIK dismissed Ivanovic's claims.

The Serb National Council for northern Kosovo is believed to be actively supporting a vigilante organisation known as the Bridge Watchers. The group operates in the industrial town of Mitrovica, divided between an ethnic Albanian south and a predominantly Serb north. It takes its name from the three bridges dividing the city. Despite UN efforts to make them hand over their weapons and submit to UN authority, the Bridge Watchers continue to act as a sort of parallel police force, claiming to be simply protecting local Serbs from ethnic Albanian attacks.

International officials accuse the group and local Serb leaders of staging seemingly spontaneous violent riots against UN police and NATO peacekeepers, but Serb leaders in northern Kosovo have rejected the accusation.

Opposing UN policies in Kosovo, the Serb leaders in Mitrovica prefer to keep close ties with Belgrade rather than recognize UNMIK's authority in many areas.

Nebojsa Covic, the head of Belgrade's Co-ordination Centre for Kosovo, has demanded an explanation from Steiner about Ivanovic's attempted detention. The Co-ordination Centre said in a statement that, following the news from the province, it had cancelled an announced signing of a protocol on recognition of Kosovo license plates.