Dacic condemns forcible freeing of Serb in Zubin Potok

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic condemned on Thursday the forcible freeing of Serb Slobodan Sovrlic from the police station in Zubin Potok, northern Kosovo, stressing that there must be order.

"There must be order and therefore such events are not good and must be met with condemnation," Dacic told reporters.

He said that the Serbs now have legal and legitimate authorities and that the local police reflects the ethnic composition of the population, adding that the police force in Zubin Potok is made up of Serbs as a result.

"I do not know who is protesting against whom, which means that this has nothing to do with inter-ethnic relations," Dacic said, adding that he does not want to go into whether Sovrlic is guilty or not.

In the incident, a group of citizens stormed the Zubin Potok police station late Wednesday and freed Sovrlic, who had been arrested by the Kosovo police earlier in the day for disturbing public law and order.

While there has as yet been no official statement from the police, unofficial sources say that the incident resulted in material damage.

The Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija and Zubin Potok mayor Stevan Vulovic condemned the violence.

Further steps of the Zubin Potok municipal leadership will depend on the moves of Kosovo's interim authorities, Vulovic said, noting that the Serbs have been subjected to violence by those institutions for years.

"Simply, we do not trust those institutions, and all that has happened came after a series of steps that have been and are being taken by the criminal authorities in Pristina and something that is trying to be a state", Vulovic said.

The Office for Kosovo-Metohija condemned the...