Djuric: Ivanovic's detention is international scandal

BELGRADE - Director of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) Marko Djuric said on Thursday that leader of the Citizens Initiative 'Freedom, Democracy, Justice' (SDP) Oliver Ivanovic is being held in detention for over six months now without proper trial and indictment, and added that this is an international legal and political scandal.

“It is very important to solve the situation as soon as possible because such an attitude both toward Ivanovic and several other people in a similar position are highly detrimental to the authority and capacities of the EULEX mission to achieve the goals defined in its mandate in northern Kosovo-Metohija,” Djuric told the Belgrade-based daily Politika.

He expressed the expectation that Ivanovic will soon be released from prison pending trial and added that the trials against him and several other Serbs in a similar position are being conducted within legal frameworks that are in keeping with European and world standards.

Ivanovic was arrested on January 27 on suspicion that he participated in an aggravated murder. After Ivanovic's hunger strike in March, the authorities transferred him from the prison in Pristina, where his safety was jeopardised, to the detention unit in northern Kosovska which is home to majority Serb population.

The Serbian government issued guarantees that in case of Ivanovic's is release from detention pending trial, the defendant will at all times be available to the court, but he was not released in spite of the guarantees.

Photo Tanjug, Z. Zestic (archive)