UNS info
15. 05. 2018.
For the seventh time journalists are going to set the plaque - We are looking for them
While preforming their work assignment, from January 1 to September 1998, 12 journalists and translators were attacked in Kosovo, two were kidnapped, and the professor, interpreter and journalist Shaban Hoti was killed.
For the murder of Professor Hoti, who went on the field as part of the Russian state television team, before the Hague Tribunal, Hajredin Balaj was sentenced. Except in that case, no murderers, kidnappers or attackers have been punished to date.
According to data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia obtained by the Journalists Association of Serbia (UNS), in 1998, to the violence were exposed representatives of both domestic and foreign media, reporters of Russian, French, German, Japanese television, newspapers and agencies.
In the first nine months of 1998, Dragutin Prentic, a journalist of Prishtina's Jedinstvo, was attacked twice in 1998. First time on the May 6th in his home in the village of Meja in the municipality of Djakovica, and the second time at the end of the August on the road between the villages Korenica and Ramac.
In the village of Djurdjica, the municipality of Glogovac, on the May 11th, correspondents of AFP and Associated Press from Belgrade, Ljubomir Miloshin and Jovan Gec were attacked.
- In mid-May, the terrorists stopped the reporter of the Croatian "Jutarnji list" Srdjan Shpanovic, who was in a vehicle together with his colleague from the Czech Republic, on the road Pec-Prishtina near Komorane. They physically mistreated him, put a rifle in his mouth and after a long "processing" took away his money and equipment and let him go. At the entrance to Mitrovica, on May 24th, KLA members stopped four German newspaper journalists from Die Welt, Berliner Norgen Post and Die Zeit, searched them and took away their travel documents. On the Glogovac-Srbica road, near the village of Trstenik, they stopped a passenger vehicle driven by a Russian citizen Sergey Mitin, a journalist of the Izvestia newspaper from Moscow. They mistreated him physically, and then took away his passenger car and films from the camera - says the MUP's report.
Security services also report that on the 21st of July, on the road Pristina-Pec, in the village of Lapusnik, in the municipality of Glogovac, was an attack on a Russian state television crew, consist of journalist Oleg Safiulin, cameraman Alexander Galanov, sound technician Viktor Mamaev and translator Shaban Hoti. After detention, three Russians were released the same evening (at 7:30 pm according to MUP data), while Saban Hoti was detained. Five days later he was killed.
- On the 12thof August a terrorist attack from automatic weapons was carried out on the village road Zrze-Ratkovac, in the municipality of Orahovac, on a bulletproof vehicle with a France register plates. In the car was a France-Presse journalist and translator Nore Limoje from Pristina. At the same place, the vehicle of the reporter of the Japanese agency "Kyodo" was stopped, the journalist was mistreated and abused, and a bulletproof vast was taken from him (the bulletproof vest was taken from the journalists of the TV crew "WTN" in May 1998). From the Reuters photographer, KLA members took away the recorded material and left him on the road to the village of Iglarevo in the municipality of Klina – the members of the MUP of Serbia reported.
On the road between the villages of Korenica and Ramac, in Djakovica municipality, on August 25, a TV Novi Sad crew was attacked with Petko Koprivica and Radoslav Jaksic, as well as journalist "Jedinstvo" Dragutin Prentic and driver Zoran Luzajic.
According to the MUP's notes, the police defended the journalists, and during that action two police officers were wounded.
One of the last notes of this report is the date of August 21, 1998. On that day, while performing their work assignment, on the way to the monastery of Zociste, journalists of Radio Pristina - Ranko Perenic and Djuro Slavuj were kidnapped. That's the last thing we know about them.
In an attempt to find out what happened to them, the UNS spoke with family members, colleagues and representatives of foreign missions.
From the head of the US diplomatic mission in Kosovo, Shaun Byrnes, we learned that Fatmir Limaj had the most influence in the area where Perenic and Slavuj were kidnapped, and that members of the KLA from the Pashtrik zone and Ramush Haradinaj's unit came to the place of abduction.
Milivoje Miki Mihajlovic, former editor of Radio Pristina, said that immediately after the kidnapping, New York Times reporter Mike O'Connor in Bela Crkva saw a blue 128 Zastava, that Perenic and Slavuj were took for their work assignment and Sony Dictaphone they brought.
Regardless of this knowledge, neither the family nor the UNS have any information whether the UNMIK and EULEX missions have been considered these information.
The UNS asked for an interview with EULEX Chief Prosecutor Claudio Pala, to whom we also wanted to raise this issue. In April this year, Mr. Pala declined an interview.
EULEX closed the investigation of the kidnapping of Perenic and Slavuj, four years ago. But informed Perenic family about this decision only in November 2017, after a series of articles on murders and abductions of journalists in which the UNS proves that nothing was done to illuminate those crimes.
The family of Djuro Slavuj has not yet received such a notice.
In the Special Prosecution of Kosovo, which is now taking over the cases from EULEX, have repeated to UNS that all cases of murder and kidnapping of journalists will be considered open.
At the site where Radio Pristina journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic were abduceted, UNS has posted a six times plaque with a message: On the August 21st, 1998, our colleagues, journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic were abducted. We are looking for them."
Every time the plaque was removed, and the last time, was broken and taken away in February. Around the place where it was, the bones of animal origin was scattered. The UNS continues to search for the truth about what happened to our colleagues. We will, for the seventh time, set up a plaque with the same inscription on the road Orahovac - Velika Hoca.
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