Serbian Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director, Marko Djuric told the independent “Insajder” production that all traces related to the assassination of Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic in January lead to the Albanian side.
Ivanovic was gunned down outside his party’s headquarters in Mitrovica North, 11 months ago and since then both Belgrade and Pristina investigations yielded no result.
“All traces, and let me be unequivocally clear, all the traces related to the murder of Oliver Ivanovic, that our state institutions are having at the moment, lead towards southern, Albanian side,” Djuric said late on Wednesday.
Belgrade and Pristina lead separate probes into the murder, and Kosovo police have recently arrested local Serbs, two of whom were policemen, suspecting Dragisa Markovic, Marko Rosic and Nedeljko Spasojevic of having links to the assassination. The three are still in detention. The fourth suspect, Milan Radoicic, believed to be close to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led by President Aleksandar Vucic is still at large.
He gave a statement to Serbia’s police and reportedly passed the polygraph test, saying he had nothing to do with Ivanovic’s murder.
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reported in February that Ivanovic had named Radoicic, a businessman widely seen as the real power-holder in Serb-majority northern Kosovo, as a key figure in the intimidating system of influence there. Last month BIRN said Kosovo police sources confirmed to the network Radoicic was a suspect in the murder.
Gordana Comic, of the opposition Democratic Party and the head of the Parliament Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, told the Insajder debate that “this tragic event should be an example that violence is not politics.”
“Besides the fact the investigation must produce a result, I'll keep on saying that six bullets into the back of a man who advocated for dialogue and peace in Kosovo for decades should teach us that violence is not politics, that the defamation and accusations are not politics, they are violence,” Comic said.