Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said on July 19 that police had killed the suspect in the fatal shooting of a police officer near the western border with Bosnia-Herzegovina after a massive manhunt that involved authorities in several countries.
The Serbian Interior Ministry's initial statement did not identify the dead suspect.
But officials had previously identified the man being sought for the killing of one policeman and the wounding of another as Faton Hajrizi, a recent prison escapee from Kosovo with multiple convictions, including for violent crimes.
"Police officers liquidated the killer of a policeman in the vicinity of Loznica," Dacic was quoted as saying in a police statement.
Dacic later specified to journalists that police had "eliminated an Albanian terrorist" in the vicinity of the village of Banja Koviljaca after he fired on police responding to a resident's report that a man who didn't speak Serbian had approached the resident asking for water.
"The police eliminated him. He had no intention of surrendering," Dacic said. "This is a ruthless and hardened criminal, this is the fifth or sixth murder he has committed."
Helicopters, drones, and at least 150 police officers had been scouring areas near the Drina River that marks the Serbian-Bosnian border, according to Serbian deputy police director Dragan Vasiljevic.
Serbian police said they were working with law enforcement in the Serb-majority region of Republika Srpska, across the border in Bosnia. Vasiljevic said they had also established cooperation with central Bosnian and Croatian police, and with international institutions in Kosovo.
Kosovar authorities had issued a warrant for Hajrizi after his escape early this month from Smrekonica prison, a low-security facility.
Kosovo's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, the country's liaison office in Serbia, responded to the reports of the suspect's death by asking Serbian authorities to confirm the identity of the individual who was killed.
Serbian authorities say the shooting occurred during a routine vehicle control at the Lipnicki Sor border checkpoint, near Loznica, early on July 18.
They say the suspect fired on two police officers as he got out of the vehicle, killing one and injuring the other, before fleeing the scene toward the nearby river.
The Interior Ministry had circulated a photograph of Hajrizi and appealed to citizens for help finding him.
After initially calling it "a clear terrorist act coming from Kosovo by Albanian structures," Dacic said investigators were treating the crime as a "terrorist attack because it is an attack on officials."
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti responded to reports of the killing by urging officials to avoid "politicizing" the tragedy.
Relations remain strained between Serbia and its partially recognized former province, which Belgrade still regards as part of Serbia despite a declaration of independence by Kosovo’s predominantly ethnic Albanian authorities in Pristina in 2008.
The Kosovo Correctional Service called Smrekonica an "open institution" and said two officers had been suspended after Hajrizi's escape earlier this month.
Hajrizi's criminal convictions in Kosovo included the killing of a Russian soldier 24 years ago when Hajrizi was still in his teens.
Reports suggested Hajrizi had escaped from prison as many as nine times, and the prison authority was quoted earlier this month as saying he had 7 1/2 years left to serve on his current sentence.
The Serbian Interior Ministry said a Kosovar passport in the name of Artan Hajrizi, Faton Hajrizi's brother, and a German identity card were found at the crime scene.
Artan Hajrizi announced in Germany on the day of the shooting that his brother had stolen his passport two days earlier.
Dacic suggested that the alleged document theft pointed to a premeditated attack.
Deputy police chief Vasiljevic told German media that police there had been contacted via Interpol.
On July 18, Dacic reported that the alleged driver of the vehicle in which the suspected shooter was riding had been apprehended in the city of Bijeljina, in Republika Srpska in Bosnia. He was identified as Zoran Radovanovic.
The Serbian Higher Court told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that Radovanovic had skipped bail five years ago before being tried in absentia and sentenced by a Belgrade court in 2020 for leading a criminal group involved in drug smuggling.
Radovanovic's wife was also arrested in Mladenovac, near Belgrade, on July 18 on suspicion of being an accomplice to a crime.