EULEX: No secret indictments against Serbs

EULEX: No secret indictments against Serbs

BELGRADE -- Head of the EU mission in Kosovo (EULEX) Bernd Borchardt "has rejected claims that Kosovo Serbs do not trust EULEX," Tanjug is reporting.

The German diplomat was also quoted as saying that "the citizens of Kosovo who have not committed any crimes have nothing to fear, because there are no secret lists or secret indictments against Kosovo Serbs."

"The claims that the Serbs in northern Kosovo are losing their confidence in EULEX's good intentions are speculations and propaganda," he told the daily Politika from Belgrade, adding that surveys conducted throughout Kosovo showed that the people in the north were happy with EULEX's work.

Based on direct contacts, EULEX knows that people want to be free of the shackles of organized crime that paralyzes the economy, drug abuse, domestic violence and that they want safety in traffic, he noted.

Regardless of the guarantees provided by the Serbian government, leader of the Citizen Initiative Serbia, Democracy, Justice Oliver Ivanović and former Kosovska Mitrovica chief of police Dragoljub Delibašić cannot be released pending a trial, because the Kosovo law does not allow that, he pointed out.

They are suspected of involvement in an alleged war crime in 1999 and post-war incidents in 2000, including an aggravated murder.

When asked why one of the indictees from the KLA Drenica group, Ismet Haxha, was released pending his trial, Borchardt responded that the question should be directed at the court.

Courts should be independent and make decisions that follow the law, he stated, stressing that he would protect the independence of any judge against political interference, and adding...