"EULEX prosecutor forged statement in Ivanović indictment"

"EULEX prosecutor forged statement in Ivanović indictment"

BELGRADE -- In his indictment against Oliver Ivanović, EULEX Special Prosecutor Cezari Mihalcuk "falsified statements from a letter of the Serbian MUP," writes a daily.

The Politika newspaper said that "after examining the documents that Serbia sent to EULEX at the request of Kosovo's special prosecutor in the case of war crimes Ivanović allegedly committed in 1999 and 2000," it found that the EULEX special prosecutor's indictment "forged statements from the letter of the state organ of Serbia."

According to the daily, the indictment states that Belgrade's response "contains indications that the accused may have been a reservist in a special police unit attached to the MUP during the war." The prosecutor cited an official MUP document to back up this claim, specifically, one from the Department for War Crimes, and noted that "it was further indicated that it could not be confirmed, since the MUP has no documentation about it."

The newspaper, however, writes that it had access to two documents sent at the request of EULEX that show "something entirely contrary to the allegations in the indictment" - i.e., that the Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) informed the EU mission in Kosovo (EULEX) they had no record of Ivanović ever being either an active or a reserve member of its forces.

The MUP letter dated March 4 of this year does state that the Military Security Agency reported there was "operational information that Ivanović, during the combat operations in 1999, served as a reserve member of the PJP of the Serbian MUP in Kosovska Mitrovica," but the document adds that checks carried out established that he was neither an active nor a reserve member of the MUP...