Mayor of Leposavic/Leposaviq Dragan Jablanovic was harassed for two hours by a member of the Kosovo police at the Končulj crossing line, when he was crossing from Kosovo to Serbia.
It happened, Jablanovic says, on his way to an official trip to Belgrade from Pristina. A police lieutenant refused to accept the travel order “because it was without a seal.”
Jablanovic says that although he explained that based on an agreement between central authorities in Pristina and the international community, a trip order can be made without a seal, the policeman got increasingly agitated.
Jablanovic says that and Minister of Justice Hajredin Kuqi also intervened, but the policeman did not want to let him go, and instead waited for the arrival of a prosecutor from Gnjilan/ Gjilan even though no criminal offense had been committed.
Upon arrival of the prosecutor, Jablanovic was moved to a different premise to give his account of what happened.
“Still I was trying to explain that we started our trip in accordance with the law, the statute adopted in Pristina and supervised by international factors, but it did not help. In the end, Haxhiu said that he would not let me go with the Serbian travel order”, Jablanovic recounts the events of 16 February.
He points out that at the time of the crossing there were representatives of EULEX, who, he says, calmly watched the harassment take place. Jablanovic also posed the question of what happens to ordinary citizens, if even he, as an official working for Kosovo institutions can get harassed and whether this means that the Končulj crossing is closed to him.
