Interpol has issued arrest warrants for six Kosovan Serbs suspected of murdering a police officer in July clashes in the country’s north, the European Union’s Kosovo mission (EULEX) said Sunday.
The world policing body issued the international warrants following a joint request by EULEX and prosecutors in Kosovo, EULEX spokesman Hanns-Christian Klasing told AFP in a statement.
He added that the application pertained to “the case of the murder of a Kosovo Police officer in the north of Kosovo on July 26.”
Klasing said those wanted include: Ratomir Bozovic, Dusan Jovanovic, Radomir Kasalovic, Radovan Radic, Milovan Vlaskovic and Slobodan Vucinic.
A trade row spilled over into violence late July when Pristina ordered its security forces to take over the two border crossings to Serbia to enforce a ban on Serbian goods.
The ethnic Albanian Kosovo government said the ban was being ignored by ethnic Serb members of Kosovo’s border police.
Serbs in northern Kosovo reacted angrily and an ethnic Albanian police officer was killed and four injured in ensuing clashes.
NATO troops stepped in when one of the border posts was set on fire and bulldozed, apparently by ethnic Serbs.
The two disputed border posts, Jarinje and Brnjak, have been closed ever since, as Serbs erected barricades throughout northern Kosovo in a bid to prevent customs and police officials sent by Pristina to get there.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Serbia still considers the territory a breakaway province encouraging the Serb minority to boycot the government in Pristina.
