A court in Serbia has released Milan Radoicic from a brief detention. He has been linked to a clash with Kosovo security forces in which four people died, sending tensions soaring in Kosovo.
Milan Radoicic, a politician and wealthy businessman with ties to the ruling SNS party and President Aleksandar Vucic, was detained in Belgrade on Tuesday. He’s suspected of leading a group of some 30 heavily armed Serb insurgents who on Sept. 24 ambushed and killed a Kosovo policeman, triggering a gunfight in a northern Kosovo village that also left three paramilitaries dead.
Kosovo has accused Serbia of orchestrating the “act of aggression” against its former province whose 2008 declaration of independence Belgrade doesn’t recognize. Serbia has denied this, saying that Radoicic and his group acted on their own.
A Belgrade judge on Wednesday ignored the public prosecutor’s call that Radoicic be kept in custody because he could flee and ruled that he was banned from leaving Serbia. He should also report to the authorities twice a month pending a trial, the judge said.
Serbian prosecutors have said Radoicic is suspected of a criminal conspiracy, unlawful possession of weapons and explosives and grave acts against public safety. They said Radoicic got weapons delivered from Bosnia to Belgrade before stashing them in “abandoned objects and forests” in Kosovo.
Radoicic denied the charges although earlier admitting being part of the paramilitary group involved in the gunfight.
Radoicic was a deputy leader of the Serbian List party in Kosovo, which is closely linked with Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party. He is known to own large properties both in Serbia in Kosovo and has been linked by investigative media to shady businesses.
European Union and U.S. officials have demanded from Serbia that all the perpetrators of the attack, including Radoicic, be brought to justice. Radoicic, 45, has been under U.S. and British sanctions for his alleged financial criminal activity.
(Radio Free Europe, 04.10.2023)