A fight broke out on July 13 during a session of Kosovo's parliament following the publication of wiretapped recordings involving the head of the ruling Vetevendosje parliamentary group, who admitted she had spoken with the wanted deputy head of the Serbian List party.
The brawl erupted after an opposition lawmaker threw water on Prime Minister Albin Kurti as he spoke about the controversy touched off by the release of the recordings.
The wiretapped conversations of Mimoza Kusari-Lila, head of Kurti's Vetevendosje, speaking with the Serbian List deputy head, Milan Radoicic, were released earlier this week.
Vetevendosje has often criticized people who have had contact with Radoicic, who has been designated for sanctions by the United States and is wanted by Kosovar judicial authorities.
Kurti was speaking to a plenary session of the National Assembly about Radoicic and how a warrant for his arrest was withdrawn in 2021 a few days before Kurti's government was formed when his speech was interrupted.
"When there were previous governments, this chief criminal was in Mitrovica, he was in Pristina. Now, our contribution is that he is in a hotel in Kopaonik, in Serbia," Kurti said.
Opposition lawmaker Mergim Lushtaku of the Democratic Party of Kosovo approached the lectern and threw water at Kurti and at Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi, who had previously torn up a drawing mocking Kurti that the opposition had placed on the lectern in the legislative chamber.
As the melee ensued, several legislators moved toward the lectern, pushing and shoving each other and exchanging punches.
Kurti, surrounded by security and his ministers, was pushed and slammed into one of the assembly seats near the lectern. Police intervened to stop the brawl and stayed in the hall until the prime minister left.
The president of the assembly, Glauk Konjufca, said that what happened was "unacceptable," adding that the violence was also punishable by law.
U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Jeff Hovenier said it was "unfortunate to see what happened" in the National Assembly, adding on Twitter that in any democracy there are often strongly held differences, "but differences should be resolved through discourse -- a fundamental purpose of any democracy's legislature."
Eliza Hoxha, speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party's parliamentary group, called for the assembly to be dissolved and elections to be held as soon as possible. She said the wiretapped recordings revealed the communication and the relations between Kurti and the "criminal who is on the black list of America [and] who has an arrest warrant from the prosecutor's office."
Radoicic is wanted by Kosovar authorities over alleged witness intimidation and has also been designated for sanctions by the United States for alleged involvement in transnational organized crime.
Radoicic is also named in an indictment as the leader of the criminal group that planned the murder of Serbian politician Oliver Ivanovic. However, the warrant for his arrest was withdrawn in March 2021 without explanation.
The melee came a day after Kurti announced he would reduce the number of special police officers stationed outside four municipal buildings in ethnic Serb-majority areas in northern Kosovo and hold new mayoral elections in each of the towns.
The United States and the European Union have pressured Kurti to help calm the situation after violence broke out in May, when ethnic Albanian mayors took office following an election that the ethnic Serb majority in the area had boycotted.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 but Belgrade still does not recognize it as a sovereign country. Most ethnic Serbs in Kosovo also have refused to acknowledge Kosovo's statehood, which is backed by the United States and most EU states, but not Russia and China.
The EU has told Kosovo and Serbia they must reach a solution to their dispute through an EU-mediated dialogue in order to join the bloc. Kurti is set to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic next week in Brussels under heavy pressure from the EU to dial down tensions.