A suspect, Shaban Berisha (47) confessed he eradicated by an excavator, a memorial plaque dedicated to the missing journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic, on 30 January 2019, Djakovica police report said. The report also said the act was “ethnically motivated,” Radio KIM reports.

“The police carried out an investigation on 4 February 2019 and discovered that the plaque was intentionally removed by an excavator and thrown away 20 meters from the spot, it was placed (…). The suspect and an excavator have been identified,” police report added.

Serbian media recalled the investigation has been carried out only after the representatives of the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) confirmed that the memorial plaque was eradicated and thrown away. They informed police about it, and the police claimed the investigation was carried out a day earlier, which obviously was not accurate. It was only after the UNS published the information about demolishment of the memorial plaque to the missing journalists for the seventh time, that the police carried out the investigation.

As it was noted, Shaban Berisha “was interrogated yesterday in the presence of a lawyer and he has confessed the crime, he is suspected of.”

This is the first time that responsible for demolishment of a memorial plaque has been identified and arrested. President of the Association of Journalists of Serbia in Kosovo, Budimir Nicic welcomed the identification of a perpetrator, adding he hopes that his arrest would contribute to shedding the light on the fate of missing journalists and “that we will finally find out what happened to our colleagues,” Nicic said.