Kosovar authorities have released a video they said implicates a top ethnic Serb businessman in an attack on an Orthodox monastery that left four people dead, including a police officer.
In a statement accompanying the video published on Facebook, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said that among the heavily armed men shown in the video was Milan Radoicic, a construction tycoon who is also a top official of the main ethnic Serb political party in Kosovo, Serbian List, funded mainly by Belgrade.
It wasn’t immediately possible to verify Radoicic’s identity in the video, which Svecla said was shot on September 24, apparently by drone.
Radoicic was hit with sanctions by the United States and Britain in 2021 for allegedly being part of an organized crime group in the Balkans.
In the September 24 attack, around 30 people dressed in military-like uniforms stormed the Serbian Orthodox complex in Banjska, sparking a gunbattle with Kosovar police.
Three attackers were killed, along with a Kosovar police officer. Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, declared a day of mourning for the slain officer.
Kosovo Police Display Confiscated Weapons Following Monastery Attack
The attack, and the murkiness of its circumstances -- no group has come forward to claim responsibility -- comes as tensions continue to mount in the ethnic-Serb-dominated district of Kosovo.
Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence, and squabbling and conflicts erupt frequently over things like license plate registrations and municipal elections.
Some observers speculated the attack might have been a false-flag operation, aimed at generating outrage in Serbia.
Veton Elshani, a top regional police official, told RFE/RL that access to Banjska will continue to be blocked until at least 9:00 a.m. local time on September 27. Elshani said searches conducted on September 26 resulted in the arrest of eight people.
Among those arrested, four had radio communications equipment, police said, and a “significant amount” of weapons, ammunition, and other equipment was also found.
Serbian List, the main political party representing Serbs in Kosovo, on September 27 declared a three-day mourning period to mark the "killing of our fellow citizens in the tragic events in the Banjska village."
At least six of the suspected attackers who escaped are now in Serbia receiving treatment at a hospital there, Svecla told reporters, and he demanded Serbia hand them over to Kosovar authorities.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has denied that Belgrade was involved in the incident.
He also repeated that Serbia would “never” recognize Kosovo’s independence, "neither formally nor informally.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on both Kosovo and Serbia to avoid worsening tensions.
"We call on the governments of Kosovo and Serbia to refrain from any actions or rhetoric which could further inflame tensions and to immediately work in coordination with international partners to de-escalate the situation,” Blinken said in a statement.
Western officials are mediating talks between Serbia and Kosovo as part of a decade-long diplomatic push toward formalized relations and repairing some of the wounds from internecine wars in the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
In May and June, Kurti ignored outside warnings and tried to forcibly install four mayors in mostly Serbian northern municipalities following boycotted by-elections to fill posts vacated by protesting Serbs.
The resulting tensions erupted in violence that injured dozens of NATO-led peacekeepers and some ethnic Serb protesters.