Delibasic to be transferred to Kosovska Mitrovica

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - Dragoljub Delibasic, a former police chief in the Serb-majority part of Kosovska Mitrovica, will be transferred from detention in Pristina to the detention centre in Kosovska Mitrovica, his lawyer Miodrag Brkljac confirmed on Friday.

The prosecutor had appealed a decision by an international judge of the Kosovska Mitrovica Basic Court to transfer Delibasic, but the extra-procedural council rejected the appeal and the judge's decision became effective, Brkljac told Tanjug.

The Serbian government has requested that Delibasic and three other Serb arrestees be released pending trial, and provided guarantees that they would be available to the EULEX mission throughout their trials.

Dragoljub Delibasic has been in detention since February 4. He was arrested on suspicion of involvement in an alleged war crime in 1999 and post-war incidents in 2000, including an aggravated murder.

Based on the guarantees, an EULEX judge has decided to allow only Zarko Veselinovic, who is suspected of attempted murder of two members of Kosovo's ROSU special police units, to remain under house arrest pending trial.

In the appeal process, the leader of the Citizens' Initiative Freedom, Democracy, Justice Oliver Ivanovic, charged in the same case as Delibasic, has been transferred from detention in Pristina to northern Kosovska Mitrovica only after going on a hunger strike.

Photo Tanjug, Boki (Archive, illustration)