Basic Prosecution Office in Gnjilane has launched an investigation against two local Serbs suspected of espionage, Radio Free Europe reported on Friday. The two men, both school principals were arrested on July 10 at crossing point Bela Zemlja, after police found some documents in their car while they were travelling to the Serbian town of Vranje.

They were released after 48 hours in police custody pending the checking of the documents about the mayor of Klokot, Serb-majority municipality, Bozidar Dejanovic who also holds the post of a chief accountant in the Technical Secondary School in Vrbovac and has an employment contract with Primary School in Vitina, Serbian media reported.

“The prosecution has decided to launch an investigation against these two persons. Documents they had were supposed to be transferred to Serbia, and contained documentation of Klokot mayor, including two diplomas, contract, employment booklet, and the last decision on employment relation,” reads response of the Kosovo prosecution office.

Dejan Vasic, defense lawyer of one of the Serbs told RFE that those documents relate to Dejanovic’s employment with the school, and not Kosovo municipality of Klokot. He added, his client was on the way to Vranje with the documents upon receiving the consent of the Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education which is “a usual and legal procedure”.

“Verification of documents suspected to be a subject of espionage, according to me, were public records, these are documents kept in every school, diplomas, documents submitted while starting employment and as such they neither represent confidential documents nor any type of state secret,” Vasic said. He added that Serbian MUP demanded those documents for verification since “there was a report that Dejanovic’s documents were forged, i.e., that he did not graduate from the school he said he did.”

Radio Free Europe said it did not manage to get in contact with Bozidar Dejanovic, who was elected as Klokot mayor in the second round of voting in 2017.