Lawyer: Belgrade arrested husband of Serb candidate in Kosovo local elections

Former police officer Dragan Nikolic (48) was arrested on April 10 at the Jarinje administrative border crossing between Serbia proper and Kosovo when he and his wife were returning to Kosovo from Serbia, in their car registered to RKS (Kosovo-issued) license plates.

The lawyer said Nikolic was detained at the border for three hours, that he though it was because he did not have his Serbian ID with him, but that he was then escorted to Belgrade by two people in plain clothes wearing ski masks. In Belgrade he was questioned at the organized crime department (SBPOK) and asked to say that he works for the Pristina security services, Ninic told the Beta news agency.

It was only at the hearing at the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade that Nikolic learnt that the complaint brought against him includes two crimes - conspiracy for unconstitutional activity and calling for a violent change of constitutional order.

He is suspected of being a member of an organized criminal group led by two Albanians that was tasked with “intensively and continuously threatening the constitutional order and safety of Serbia with the aim of violently changing the constitutional order of Serbia,” said Ninic, adding that this group is allegedly also responsible for the torching of a number of cars owned by Kosovo Serbs and for attacks and wounding of Serbs in North Kosovo.

"My client does not know what he should defend himself against when none of the charges against him have been individualized and specified. He was not physically present at the locations at the time that is the subject of the allegations of the criminal complaint, nor was he ever a member of any criminal group that acted against the constitutional order of the state of Serbia,” said the lawyer.

On the prosecutor’s proposal the Higher Court in Belgrade ordered that Dragan Nikolic be remanded in custody for up to 30 days.

"This arrest is politically motivated and is a blatant example of the persecution of a family in northern Kosovo that dared not to support the so-called Serb List. This is the climax of the carrot and stick policy served to disobedient Serbs in the north of Kosovo for ten years by the government personified by (Serbian President) Aleksandar Vucic,” said Ninic.