T Secretary General of the EFJ Ricardo Gutierrez later replied to the UNS’ letter.

UNS’ President Živojin Rakočević responded. We are publishing that answer (which was sent to all the participants of the Assembly in Pristina), in English and Serbian:

Dear Ricardo and delegates at the EFJ Annual Meeting in Pristina,

As you all know we can just turn a blind eye. Like in this online dialog. In reality, only one organized group of journalists and that is The Journalists` Association of Serbia with its Kosovo branch, has been persistent in its years-long investigation of the cases of murdered, kidnapped and missing journalists and media workers in Kosovo. The largest number of unsolved cases of murdered journalists in Europe, both Albanians and Serbs, and the least interested prosecution office is in Kosovo. We listed in total 17 cases in the period from 1998 until 2005.

UNS has been constantly struggling for professional freedoms and the better working conditions of the media community in Kosovo and Metohija. We have kept records of pressures, threats, attacks against journalists and media workers. We raise the voice in protest when journalists come to official events and organizers do not let them in or deny them fundamental rights to hear the information in their own language. As you all must know Serbian is an official language in Kosovo. UNS exposes and criticizes officials - local, national and from the international community. 

We expected EFJ to act fairly, especially after the president`s Maja Sever email from January 31, 2024, in which she assured us that the Steering Committee „agreed that we would by all means work together in preparation of the Annual Meeting“.

It wouldn`t be the first time for EFJ to act proactively and include all organizations from one area in organizing the AM. I would like to remind you that back in 2010 one of the Serbian members applied to organize AM and the EFJ’s approach was to gather us all together. All three organizations, including UNS, smoothly organized the AM of the EFJ in Belgrade in 2010. Why the same didn`t happen in this case? Especially if we know that Serbian and Albanian journalists living in Kosovo have to act together for the sake of professional principals? What happened after January 31st? Why were we expelled?

Dear Ricardo, with all due respect, it should not be a "gesture of goodwill" for the EFJ to deal with the burning issues in Kosovo, when you are already at the spot. Seeing the agenda of the AM we must acknowledge that our motions, even though we are not participating, and showing our protest in that way, helped EFJ to stay more with the journalists' reality in Kosovo.

Five members of the UNS`s Board live in Kosovo and work there as journalists. We have our branch in Kosovo. It has been registered there as we already stated. I would like to remind you that I also live in Pristina’s suburb, in a small enclave Gracanica.

UNS was founded in 1881 and with all due respect, I would like to stress again it is not up to the General Secretary or the EFJ to advise us to divide and make our Kosovo branch a separate member of the EFJ.

We pay our fees for all our members to the EFJ and the IFJ, no matter if they live in Belgrade or Gracanica.

Kind regards,

Zivojin Rakocevic, president of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS)

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Поштовани Рикардо и делегати Годишње скупштине ЕФЈ у Приштини,

Као што сви знате, можемо једноставно затворити очи. Као у овом онлајн дијалогу. У стварности, само једна организована група новинара, а то је Удружење новинара Србије са огранком на Косову, истрајна је у дугогодишњој истрази случајева убијених, киднапованих и несталих новинара и медијских радника на Косову.

Највећи број нерешених случајева убистава новинара у Европи, како Албанаца тако и Срба, а најмање заинтересовано тужилаштаво, је на Косову. Забележили смо укупно 17 случајева у периоду од 1998. до 2005. године.

УНС се непрестано бори за професионалне слободе и боље услове за рад медијске заједнице на Косову и Метохији. Водимо евиденцију о притисцима, претњама, нападима на новинаре и медијске раднике. Протестујемо када новинари долазе на званичне догађаје, а организатори их не пуштају или им ускраћују основна права да чују информације на свом језику. Као што сви морате да знате, српски је званични језик на Косову.

УНС разоткрива и критикује функционере – локалне, националне и међународне заједнице.

Очекивали смо да ће ЕФЈ поступити фер, посебно након имејла председнице Маје Север од 31. јануара 2024. године, у коме нас је уверавала да се Управни одбор „сложио да ћемо свакако заједно радити на припреми Годишње скупштине“.

Не би било први пут да ЕФЈ делује проактивно и укључи све организације са једног подручја у организовање Годишње скупштине.

Подсећам вас да се још 2010. године једна од српских чланица ЕФЈ-а пријавила за организацију Годишње скупштине и да је приступ ЕФЈ-а био да нас све окупи. Све три организације, укључујући и УНС, лако су организовале Годишњу скупштину ЕФЈ-а у Београду 2010.

Зашто се то није догодило и у овом случају? Поготово ако знамо да српски и албански новинари који живе на Косову морају да делују заједно зарад професионалних принципа? Шта се десило после 31. јануара? Зашто смо искључени?

Драги Рикардо, уз дужно поштовање, не би требало да „гест добре воље“ буде то да се ЕФЈ бави горућим питањима на Косову, када сте већ дошли на лице места.

Гледајући дневни ред Годишње скупштине, намеће се закључак да су предлози резолуција које смо дали, иако не учествујемо на Годишњој скупштини, помогли ЕФЈ-у да остане у вези са новинарском реалношћу на Косову.

Пет чланова Управе УНС-а живи на Косову и тамо раде као новинари. Имамо свој огранак на Косову. Тамо је регистрован, као што смо већ рекли.

Подсећам да и ја живим у предграђу Приштине, у малој енклави Грачаница.

УНС је основан 1881. године и уз дужно поштовање, желим још једном да нагласим да није на генералном секретару, ни на ЕФЈ-у, да нас саветује да се поделимо и да наш косовски огранак учинимо посебним чланом ЕФЈ-а.

Ми плаћамо чланарину Европској и Међународној федерацији новинара за све наше чланове, без обзира да ли живе у Београду или Грачаници.

Срдачан поздрав,

Живојин Ракочевић, председник Удружења новинара Србије (УНС)

Read HERE the previous UNS’ letter to the AM delegates in Prishtina.

We publish Ricardo Gutierrez's answer, in English and Serbian:

Dear delegates and observers.
We look forward to seeing you in Prishtina, Kosovo.

You have received a message from one of our Serbian affiliates, UNS, which has decided not to participate officially in our Annual Meeting (AM), but to send an observer (see updated participants' list, enclosed).

UNS of course has the right not to take part in the AM. On the other hand, as EFJ General Secretary, I would like to correct the erroneous information circulated by UNS:

1. The EFJ has never "excluded" UNS or UNS in Kosovo (which is not an EFJ member organisation) from the preparation of the AM in Prishtina. We called on all EFJ affiliates, including UNS, to organise the AM and UNS never applied;
2. In contrast to UNS, the Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AGK) applied and its proposal was accepted by the Steering Committee. We informed all EFJ affiliates of this and UNS never contacted AGK to offer to help organise the AM;
3. The EFJ President invited UNS to participate in the AM debates and UNS submitted two motions to the AM, but there was never any question of involving UNS in the organisation of the AM, as this task has been entrusted to AGK, in accordance with the EJF Statutes and on the basis of a democratic decision of the Steering Committee. As a gesture of goodwill, the EFJ Steering Committee is considering carrying one of the UNS motions (the one on missing journalists), even though UNS is not normally allowed to table motions, given its choice not to participate in the AM.

We remind UNS that Annual Meetings and General Meetings are not organised by all affiliates of a host country or by affiliates from several host countries, but only by those affiliates who have applied in accordance with our statutes and who are selected by the Steering Committee. Once again, UNS could have put in an application or proposed a joint application with AGK. But they did not. It is totally unfair and completely misleading to accuse the EFJ of having ‘excluded’ UNS!

Our President, Maja Sever, will comment on this at the AM and answer any questions you may have.

Kind regards,

Ricardo

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Драги делегати и посматрачи,

Радујемо се да вас видимо у Приштини, Косово.

Добили сте поруку једне од наших српских чланица, УНС-а, која је одлучила да не учествује званично на нашој Скупштини, али да пошаље посматрача.

УНС, наравно, има право да не учествује на Годишњој скупштини. Са друге стране, као генерални секретар ЕФЈ-а желим да исправим погрешне информације које је УНС проширио.

1. ЕФЈ никад није „искључио“  УНС ни УНС на Косову (које није организација чланица ЕФЈ-а) из припреме Годишње скупштине ЕФЈ-а у Приштини. Позвали смо све чланице ЕФЈ-а, укључујући УНС, да организују Годишњу скупштину и УНС се није пријавио;

2. Супротно од УНС-а, Асоцијација новинара Косова (АГК) се пријавила и Управни одбор ЕФЈ-а је прихватио њихов предлог. Обавестили смо све ЕФЈ чланице о овоме и УНС никада није контактирао АГК да понуди помоћ у организацији Годишње скупштине;

3. Председница ЕФЈ-а је позвала УНС да учествује у дебатама на Скупштини и УНС је поднео два предлога резолуција Годишњој скупштини, али никада није било речи о укључивању УНС-а у организацију Годишње скупштине, јер је тај задатак поверен АГК-у, у складу са Статутом ЕФЈ-а и на основу демократске одлуке Управног одбора. Као гест добре воље, Управни одбор ЕФЈ разматра усвајање једне од предложених резолуција УНС-а (оне о несталим новинарима), иако УНС-у није дозвољено да подноси предлоге, с обзиром на то да је одлучио да не учествује на Годишњој скупштини.

Подсећамо УНС да се годишње и изборне скупштине не организују од стране свих чланица земље домаћина или од чланица из неколико земаља, него само од оних које су се пријавиле у складу са Статутом и које су одабране од Управног одбора. Још једном, УНС је могао да се сам пријави или поднесе заједничку пријаву са АГК. Али није. Тотално је нефер и потпуно обмањујуће оптужити ЕФЈ да је „искључио“ УНС!

Наша председница Маја Север ће ово коментарисати на Годишwој скупштини и одговорити на сва питања која имате.

Поздрав,

Рикардо

We publish the UNS letter, in English and Serbian:

As a participant in the 2024 Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists in Pristina, please take the following into consideration:

The journalists of Jedinstvo, the sole newspaper in the Serbian language in Kosovo and Metohija, have to leave their premises in North Kosovska Mitrovica they have been using for more than 20 years. Their space has allegedly been sold, although they have received no official document. The Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija gave the space to Jedinstvo to use back in 2003. Before that, in 1999, the Jedinstvo staff was moved out of its premises in Priština, which have not been returned to the newspaper to date.

Radio Television of Serbia journalist Svetlana Vukmirović has been prevented from doing her job several times, by being banned from entering Kosovo and Metohija. Tanjug News Agency journalist Anđelko Utješanović has faced the same kind of ban. The authorities in Priština ban journalists from entering Kosovo without any explanation. 

Even 20 years after the March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija, we are witnessing scandalous reports by Radio Television of Kosovo’s (RTK) website, which continues to forge facts and inaccurately inform the public about this event. 

On March 17, 2024, RTK repeated on its website the fake news from 20 years ago, that three Albanian boys drowned in the Ibar River “while running from a group of Serb youths.” The fake news served as a trigger for the violence that broke out and which left 19 people dead, 39 churches and monasteries destroyed, villages and urban environments burned, more than 900 Serbs beaten up and harassed, and some 4,000 Serbs expelled.  

The Press Council of Kosovo has dismissed as unfounded a recent complaint by UNS’ Kosovo branch against repeated unethical reporting that RTK resorts to.

Organizers of news conferences and meetings between officials have this year, like in previous years, denied citizens and media outlets in Kosovo and Metohija translation into Serbian, an official language in Kosovo and Metohija.

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) and its Kosovo branch are not taking part in the EFJ Annual Meeting due to having been excluded from preparations for and organization of the Annual Meeting in Priština.

Unlike the Kosovo Journalists Association (AGK), which is the EFJ’s partner in organizing the Annual Meeting in Priština, UNS in Kosovo was ignored, despite promises to the contrary from EFJ President Maja Sever. 

UNS in Kosovo, like the Kosovo Journalists Association, was registered in this territory in 2002, and has existed in Priština since 1950.

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Молимо Вас да као учесник Скупштине Европске федерације новинара (ЕФЈ) 2024. године у Приштини, узмете у обзир следеће:

• Новинари „Јединства“, јединог листа на српском језику на Косову и Метохији, морају да напусте редакцијске просторије у северном делу Косовске Митровице које користе више од 20 година. Наводно, њихов простор је продат, иако нису добили званични документ. Простор је „Јединство“ добило на коришћење од Координационог центра за Косово и Метохију 2003. године. Пре тога, 1999. године редакција листа „Јединство“ исељена је из својих просторија у Приштини, које им до данас нису враћене.
  
  
• Новинарки Радио-телевизије Србије Светлани Вукмировић неколико пута је онемогућаван рад забраном уласка на Косово и Метохију. Са истим начином забране суочио се и новинар новинске агенције Танјуг Анђелко Утјешановић. Приштинске власти новинарима забрањују улазак на Косово без образложења.
  
  
• И после 20 година од Мартовског погрома на КиМ, сведоци смо скандалозног извештавања сајта Радио-телевизије Косова (РТК) који и даље кривотвори чињенице и нетачно обавештава јавност о овом догађају.
  
  РТК је 17. марта 2024. године поновио на свом сајту лажну вест од пре 20 година да су се тројица албанских дечака утопила у реци Ибар „док су бежали од групе српских младића“. Та лажна вест је била окидач за избијање насиља у ком је убијено 19 људи, уништено 39 цркава и манастира, попаљена села и урбане средине, претучено и малтретирано више од 900, а протерано око 4.000 Срба. 

Савет за штампу Косова одбацио је као неосновану недавну жалбу УНС-а на Косову на понављање неетичког извештавања којем прибегава РТК.

• Организатори конференција за новинаре и састанака званичника и ове, као и ранијих година, грађанима и медијима на КиМ ускраћивали су превод на српски језик, званични језик на Косову и Метохији.

УНС са својим огранком на Косову не учествује на Годишњој скупштини ЕФЈ-а због искључивања из припреме и организовања Годишње скупштине у Приштини.

УНС на Косову је, за разлику од Асоцијације новинара Косова (АГК), која је партнер ЕФЈ-а у организацији Годишње скупштине у Приштини, игнорисан, упркос обећању председнице ЕФЈ-а Маје Север да неће бити тако.

УНС на Косову је, као и Асоцијације новинара Косова, на овој територији регистрован 2002. године, а у Приштини постоји од 1950. године.

The investigation into the murder of the young Sabac media team, killed in an ambush on October 9, 1991, in the Banija front line in Croatia, was never conducted.

In the bullet ridden car alongside Zoran Amidzic (41) were cameraman Bora Petrovic (32) and assistant cameraman Dejan Milicevic (24). Their guide was the recruited Radio Sabac editor Sretan Ilic (42), who was severely wounded and died on the way to the nearest military hospital.

UNS has documented in its investigation that “Slobodni tjednik” published false and fabricated information about the murder of the Sabac team but also original documents found with the murdered Amidzic.

Investigating further, UNS came across documents that refuted the lie published by “Slobodni tjednik” that the Sabac media team was wearing military uniforms. In the documentation UNS possesses, it is clear that the RTS media team was in civilian clothing when returning from their journalistic assignment.

Furthermore, UNS investigated the regional military deployment and the locations of JNA units at the time of the Sabac team’s murder, as well as the positions of Croatian forces.

In its latest investigation, UNS also wrote about Zivko Filipovic, a photojournalist for “Srpsko slovo” and a cameraman for TV Novi Sad, who was killed by a grenade on January 30, 1993, in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Azici. Then also about Miloš Vulovic, a journalist for Radio Ilidza, who died on January 30, 1993, in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Azici from shrapnel of a grenade. In addition to the names, the UNS Files contain numerous details about the killing of Ranko Elez, a war reporter for Radio Novi Sad and Radio Foca, who died on June 10, 1993, at Medena Glavica near Cajnice, as well as Dusan Tepsic, a war reporter for TV Belgrade who was killed near Obudovac on November 22, 1992

For two decades now, UNS has been carefully gathering data and publishing it in its Files on murdered and missing journalists and media workers. So far, 38 names of journalists and media workers have been recorded, most of whom worked for Serbian editorial offices, and were killed, kidnapped, disappeared, died, or lost their lives under unresolved circumstances.

On April 17, 2024, UNS organized a conference “What have journalists discovered in decades since the murders of journalists and where is justice in all this?”, at which journalists, lawyers, and representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for War Crimes spoke.

In the Files, UNS has also published data on eight journalists from Kosovo media in the Albanian language who were killed from 1999 to 2005.

Before the last year’s conference “Three Decades Later: What We Know and What We Uncover About Unpunished Journalist Murders from 1991 to 1995”, UNS also disclosed the information available to journalist associations from the former Yugoslavia.

The Association of B-H Journalists said they had the most extensive list containing 81 names of killed, injured, and missing journalists and media workers. As Borka Rudic, the general secretary, informed us at the time, this is the record covering the period from 1992 to 1995, the time of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

UNS received data on six killed individuals from the Association of Journalists of the Republic of Srpska, with the note that this was not a final list and that they would send additional information.

The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) has a “List of Journalists and Technicians Killed in Croatia from 1991 to 1993”, which includes the names of 22 persons.

In Montenegro, the records of the Association of Journalists of Montenegro and the Media Union of Montenegro correspond, listing the murder of the director and chief editor of the newspaper “Dan”, Dusko Jovanovic, in 2004 as the only case.

The Slovenian Journalists’ Association records two cases from the past: the death of Ivo Standeker in Sarajevo and the disappearance and murder of photojournalist Alojz Krivograd Futi in Bosnia. He was a photojournalist whose work was familiar to the UNS investigators because he was a regular contributor to “Slobodni tjednik”.

If we add the numerical data obtained by journalist associations in the region to the UNS’s, we reach a total of 158 journalists and media workers with tragic fates.

However, this number will be lower as it has been observed that some names appear on multiple lists.

Upon receiving the data from colleagues in the association “BH Journalists”, who have meanwhile submitted a list to the local Prosecutor’s Office for War Crimes, UNS will publish the comprehensive files of deceased journalists and media workers based on the records of journalist associations from the former Yugoslavia.

His death, as is the case with many journalists and thousands of other victims, remains unpunished to date.

- Dušan Tepsic was born on December 24, 1962 in Vrginmost, Kordun, Croatia. While still in primary school, he lost his father Gojko, and his mother Milka raised her only child alone.

- Dusko attended the high school of geodesy in Zagreb, then he enrolled in the higher geodesy school, which he never graduated. He never pursued his profession, he was occupied with singing, he also made a record just before the war. His was also interested in folklore dance and he danced in “Lado” in Zagreb, and from the age of fifteen he played volleyball in the local club “5^th October” - says Predrag Nenezic for UNS, a native of Vrginmost who lives in Canada, and whose best friend Tepsic was supposed to be best man at the wedding, but the war broke out.

After he released a record, a few months before the outbreak of the war, he was hired by the radio Glas Petrova Gora in Vrginmost, which became Serbian radio Petrova Gora in 1991.

-  Duško radiated positive energy. He lived for music; he would have probably become a successful singer if he had lived. The anchor and journalist work came with the war. I brought him to the radio seven or eight months before the war. He hosted entertainment programs and was the editor of the music program. In the beginning of the war, he became an excellent war correspondent from the host of music shows – the editor-in-chief of radio Petrova Gora Nada Jaksic told UNS.

In 1992, the war brought him an official position in the then Republic of Srpska Krajina (RSK).

- He was in Martic’s cabinet (Milan Martic was at the time Minister of Internal Affairs in the RSK government, author’s note) a journalist and he did footage for TV Belgrade. I don't know what that position was called, but he often traveled to Belgrade, and he did reports from both Bosnia and RSK. He stopped by our place as well, but he stayed more in Knin and Belgrade - Jaksic says. 

The well known “Operation Corridor 92” then happened, the largest during the war of the Army of the Republic of Srpska, which at the time was called the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By breaking through that narrow passage, the western and eastern parts of the former Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were joined, i.e. the road from Krajina and further towards Serbia, which until then was held by Croatian forces. The corridor was breached on June 26, 1992, and the operation officially ended on October 6. However, that was not the end of the fighting, and thus the loss of life.

- Fights were fought until October 6 west of the Bosna River, in ​​the municipalities of Derventa, Bosanski Brod and Odzak. The territory there was cleared, but to the east of the Bosnia River, where our Second Posavina Brigade carried out combat operations, a pocket remained in the territory of the municipality of Orasje. In terms of depth, as the crow flies, it was approximately eight to nine kilometers from the Sava, and from west to east 12 to 15 kilometers. Every day there were some battles until the Dayton Agreement, - Radovan Zoranovic from Obudovac, who during the war was a battalion commander from the Second Posavina Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Srpska, says for UNS, and today he is the president of the Samac Municipal Veterans Organization.

He also says there were several regular brigades of the Croatian Army (HV) and four or five brigades of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO).

- On our side, there was the Second Posavina Brigade and Krajina units, because that area was rather narrow. From Samac to Brcko, the corridor was only about four to five kilometers wide, sometimes even just one kilometer. Hundreds and thousands of people, the wounded, trucks, goods were passing through it on a daily basis. To the north, we were conducting operations against the Croats, and to the south, we had the Army of BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina). We had about 10,000 people, and they had between 10,000 and 20,000. But these numbers changed in different periods because forces were shifted to other parts of the front depending on the needs. Shells were falling daily, sometimes up to 500 in 24 hours, even 1,000 of various calibers. But we didn't stay silent”, says Zoranovic, adding that their brigade alone had about 500 casualties during the war.

On November 22, 1992, Dusan Tepsic also travelled on the corridor. This time, he was alone although during the war he was inseparable from cameraman Ljubomir Pavlovic, also from Vrginmost. Before the war, Pavlovic filmed weddings and birthdays as an amateur cameraman, and later joined Radio Petrova Gora, where he started working for TV Belgrade with Tepsic.

- Dusko saw there were no news reports from the front lines in the news program. He went to Belgrade, got accreditation and everything else, so he could go everywhere. Since they didn't allow me to go anywhere, he got me accreditation too, and we worked together for TV Belgrade. We struggled to send material. There was no electricity in the radio station; we worked with the help of a generator. We reviewed the material, then sent it via a link from Banja Luka, for whose television we also worked. Or from Bihac. A Croat working for TV Banja Luka stole our footage and forwarded it to Zagreb. From Bihac, we sent only two clips, which were stolen from us and forwarded to TV Zagreb, after which Bihac came under Muslim control”, says Pavlovic for UNS.

According to Pavlovic, the duo from Vrginmost was on the front lines of the corridor from the first day and filmed everything.

- When we returned from the corridor, Dusan was appointed Deputy Minister of Information of the RSK (Republic of Srpska Krajina). We all then got the RSK militia badges; that's how we had to work. Dusko always wore camouflage uniform but also had a “press” badge on his jacket, Pavlovic explains, adding there is a picture of him in a shirt with the RSK militia emblem but with the inscription “press service” on Tepsic’s tombstone.

Health issues prevented Pavlovic from traveling to Belgrade with Tepsic.

- I had back problems and was receiving injections in Vrginmost when Dusko said he was going to the so-called second corridor, i.e. the pocket that remained under the Croats, and further to Belgrade because he had been tasked to make a 20-25 minute report on the breakthrough on the corridor. We had to go to Belgrade because we had nowhere to edit the footage. He took six tapes with recordings of operations on breaking through the corridor. He also took some other tapes because we covered everything - Knin, Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun, Banija. Everything except Vukovar and eastern Slavonia. Dusko left, and I told him I would come as soon as I got those injections. There was a regular bus line to Belgrade, through Vrginmost”, says Pavlovic, adding that Tepsic also took another camera and a photo camera with him, so he recorded fighters along the way.

On that journey, he also passed through Obudovac, a place halfway between Samac and Brcko. He stopped by to see Krsto Zarkovic, a man from Krajina and at the time the commander of the Slavonia militia unit.

- I knew him from before, an exceptional guy. On that day he was in command, talking with me and another colleague, showing us footage from the front lines, carrying tapes with him. I remember as it happened today, he was driving a red “Renault 4” and was heading below the center of Obudovac. It was afternoon, maybe 2-3 o'clock. I distinctly remember the pine tree next to which he died. He stopped there, in front of the fence where the schoolyard and churchyard meet. A shell came from the Croatian side, from Domaljevac, it is a town on the Sava River on the Bosnian side, and at the time it was under the control of the HVO (Croatian Defense Council). The grenade certainly didn't come from across the Sava. As soon as it exploded, we all ran over, but he was already dead. He was wearing a camouflage shirt, a brown belt, but also a ‘press’ badge, just like the vehicle had a ‘press’ sign”, Zarkovic, who lives in Banja Luka, tells UNS.

“The Obudovac residents were awakened by the cannonade of enemy artillery. Shells were falling in the center, behind the school, on Barice, and further on, in Kojici and Cilase, and then “moved” to Pelagicevo and Letnica - Covic Polje... The artillery attack continued into the afternoon. One woman was lightly wounded, and one Krajina man more seriously, along with material damage”, it is written in Zoranovic’s diary for November 22.

That man from Krajina, who succumbed to his wounds, was Tepsic. Zoranovic didn't know him.

- I only found out his name two years ago. He was just a passerby, like many others every day. Some say he took a break when the shell fell. According to the information I have, there was another man with him in the car, I don't know who. That man survived. I've heard that Tepsic went with recorded material from the Brcko front, but whether someone took over the material, I don't have that information”, says Zoranovic, who also sent us a photograph of the war diary for that November 22, while Zarkovic believes that Tepsic was alone in the car.

Ljubomir Pavlovic also emphasizes that the tapes were in Tepsic’s car and that they disappeared when he was killed.

- When I watched a program on Croatian television, I saw two of our tapes on the table in front of Ivica Pandza Orkan, a colonel of the Croatian army, which had my handwriting, that ugly, specific one. There were six tapes of recorded material labeled Bosnia 1, Bosnia 2..., which were in Dusko's possession at the time of his death. And I saw two of them in front of Orkan. He then talked on HTV about them having many tapes, how they are evidence, and thanks to them, some people should be prosecuted. I don't know how the tapes ended up with him”, Pavlovic explains, adding that Tepsic also had a diary with him, where he wrote everything, which also disappeared when he was killed.

A lot of material, he claims, which they filmed, later appeared on Croatian television.

- Vidusevac is a village near Glina, it was strategically important; the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) was there, but also volunteers. And there was our footage from Vidusevac with the Croats, with their comments, or as they said their documentary film, - says Pavlovic, who lives in Sombor.

Orkan has long been boasting about the material he has, even 11 years ago he told “Vecernji list” how he collected as many as 700 video tapes. He sent some of them to the Hague Tribunal, while he used some of them for making six documentary films, as he said back then. He also told that he was wounded on August 4, 1995.

- After leaving the hospital, one of my soldiers brought a video tape. It was an amateur recording showing Serbian soldiers entering the village of Vidusevac, where it's clearly visible how the church is set on fire and plundered”, Orkan told “Večernji list” about the same video that Pavlovic talked about.

Nada Jaksic also says that many of Tepsic’s tapes disappeared after his death.

- I remember Dusko's mother told me how she asked Martic and others for Dusko's belongings from the room where Dusko stayed and got nothing. There probably was also an archive, like in Vrginmost. The fact is that some recordings later appeared in Croatian media. How and when they got them - I don't know. We all arrived in Serbia after “Operation Storm”, I can't know what the Croats did in Knin and Vrginmost afterwards. In the end, many tapes disappeared, - Jaksic emphasizes.

Pavlovic points out with bitterness:

- He died, was brought home, buried, and after that, no one said a word about him.

And it's really like that. The name of Dusan Tepsic, as of someone who died in the war, is mentioned in only a few places. There are merely two sentences in the UNS files about journalists and media workers from Serbian media killed or abducted since 1991. Not much has been known about him until now. Tepsic is also on the list of killed journalists in the Balkans from the early nineties on the website https://last-despatches.balkaninsight.com/, where it is only stated that he was killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The document submitted by Serbia to the International Court of Justice, in the case of Croatia's lawsuit against Serbia for genocide, also lists the name of Dusan Tepsic among Serbian victims in Croatia from 1990 to 1998 (https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/118/18196.pdf), where he is registered as a policeman.

The public hadn't heard much about this journalist until last summer when, just 150 meters from the place of his death, a plaque dedicated to Dusan Tepsic was placed in the memorial complex dedicated to the people from Obudovac who died in all wars. The initiator was Svetozar Dancuo from Vrginmost, who lives in the USA. He knew Tepsic from the young age, and he even worked with him in the radio. Some people who were in Obudovac at the time of his death attended the commemoration, as well as some from Vrginmost. He has no family left; his mother passed away a little earlier in Batajnica, where she had fled after “Operation Storm”. According to her last wish, her urn was taken to Vrginmost.

- The place where Dusan Tepsic died is a symbol of the suffering of journalists and the impunity of crimes against journalists and media workers. The killing of Dusan Tepsic and other journalists can be considered a crime that happened twice - when a journalist was killed and when no one was held accountable for that murder, - said Slobodan Radicevic, president of the Executive Board of UNS, at the commemoration in June in Obudovac.

All our interviewees claim that no investigation into Tepsic’s death was ever conducted - one death more or less in the whirlwind of war. Krsta Zarkovic adds to this:

- A Krajina Serb, from the Croatian territory at the time of his death, a citizen of Yugoslavia which no longer exists, killed on the territory of the Republic of Srpska – he’s practically stateless. Unfortunately, no one cares about his death.

Ranko Elez was born on January 1, 1961, in the hamlet of Borjanice, in Miljevina, the municipality of Foca. He was the first of three children of Milorad, a miner from the coal mines in Miljevina, and Rajka, a housewife.

He loved football since childhood, and he played for the club “Rudar” in Miljevina, earning the nickname Ziko after the famous Brazilian. Even today, when Ranko’s closest relatives, his sister Slavojka and brother Branko, speak of him, they refer to him as Ziko.

- He completed elementary school in Miljevina and attended the traffic-technical high school in Sarajevo. He graduated in journalism in 1987 from the Faculty of Political Science “Veljko Vlahovic” in Sarajevo. After completing his studies, he returned to his hometown of Miljevina, where he worked as a freelancer for Radio Foca - says Slavojka Filipovic, Elez’s sister who is four years younger, to UNS.

- He was also actively involved in politics, especially during the start of the state’s dissolution. In the end of 1990, the first multi-party elections were held in the SFRY. The electorate in the then Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided along national, i.e. religious lines. Ranko Elez, like most Serbs, supported the Serbian Democratic Party.

- Ziko was an active member of the SDS in Foca, as many still talk about today. As such, he knew every corner of the municipal territory because he worked extensively in the field before the first multi-party elections. Later, when the war broke out, it wasn’t difficult for him to report from this area either - says Janko Filipovic, president of the Municipal Organization of Families of Captured and Fallen Fighters and Missing Civilians in Foca, a young man who is Ranko Elez’s nephew but who doesn’t remember him because he was very young when he was killed.

The war in Foca officially began on April 8, 1992. From that date, according to the “Monograph of Fallen Fighters and Civilians in the Defensive-Homeland War in the Municipality of Foca 1991-1995”, Ranko Elez was a participant in the war, in which he was a journalist in his unit, according to the same source.

- He had significant involvement in organizing the defense of Foca immediately after the attack by Muslim forces before the official establishment of the army of Srpska - says Janko Filipovic.

Until the beginning of June 1992, the crisis management committee commanded the Territorial Defense units. The Army of the Republic of Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina, later the Army of the Republic of Srpska, was founded on May 12, and the area of the municipality of Foca and mobilized fighters belonged to the Herzegovina Corps, which covered a front over 300 km long, from Trebinje in the west all the way to Visegrad, i.e., the Drina River in the east.

- Ziko was in the Tactical Group (TG) “Foca”, which was later renamed TG “Drina”, which was actually a command of the Foca Brigade, and he was simultaneously involved in journalism - explains Filipovic, who found information about Elez’s exact deployment in his death certificate.

War reporters were in high demand at the time. Journalist Drago Todorovic, who had been working at Sarajevo’s “Oslobodjenje” since 1980 and also reported for Radio Sarajevo, left the Sarajevo and returned to his native Foca in 1992, becoming a war reporter for TV Novi Sad. He introduced his friend Ziko to the job, who often stayed with him in the apartment during the 1980s when he came to Sarajevo to take exams.

- When the war broke out, I mostly reported from the Gorazde frontlines, from Treskavica, Bjelasnica, and Ziko began his practical journalism career for the first time in war, with me. Since I was a reporter for TV Novi Sad, I suggested he work for Radio Novi Sad - says Todorovic for UNS.

At the time, the chief editor of the news program at Radio Novi Sad was Budimir Markovic, originally from Foca.

- We had reporters from all war zones, and we hired Ranko when the conflict reached the Foca-Gorazde front in the spring 1992. He reported objectively, without bias or excessive passion, but professionally. None of his reports from the field were filled by strong nationalism or hatred; it was purely a report on the situation. He was a decent man, a professional, friendly, and peace-loving; such individuals are rarely born - says Markovic for UNS, recalling one incident from the beginning of the war.

- Ranko was having lunch at my place in Novi Sad, and said: “Brother, this will not end well. I fear 1941 could happen again and massacres like the one on the bridge over the Drina River. But most of all, I fear the innocent people on both sides would suffer. They have instilled so much hatred in us”. We looked at each other, unable to eat. He said: “I don’t know what we can do to help, but I’m going back, I won’t run away from Foca, I won’t abandon the people”.

Not all his material could be sent from the front, so he had to bring reports himself to Radio Novi Sad.

- The entire editorial team loved him. Unfortunately, there are no longer any recordings from Ranko from the front because the entire audio library was destroyed in the bombing of the RTV Novi Sad building in 1999 - he emphasizes.

- Ranko called me and, with tears, said: “Help, brother, what can be done for those who are still alive” - Markovic says.

In the very beginning of the war, Elez had the opportunity for employment that might have changed everything.

- He was offered to be the director of the Cultural Center in Foca, which was actually Radio Foca. He declined because he already had a salary from RTV Novi Sad, but mainly because it would mean removing someone he respected from that position. “Should I leave the person who taught me journalism without a job?”, he said and rejected the offer - his sister Slavojka Filipovic says, adding that he also reported on the war for the SRNA agency.

The beginning of June 1993 was relatively calm in this part of the front. Nothing significant was happening. It was the lull before the “Lukavac 93” operation, which would start one month later and involve the Herzegovina Corps.

- Foca was ours at the time; we were pushing the frontlines towards Gorazde and we even reached the Drina River. Everything was under our control and peaceful in the municipality of Foca. However, Cajnice was in trouble, so we went to help them, to push the frontline. It was the first time we went to the Cajnice territory, where we stayed for about fifteen days, maybe even longer. We fought on a front about ten kilometers wide. Medena Glavica was one of two important and dominant hills for Cajnice, situated between that place and Gorazde, a 45-minute drive from Foca through rugged terrain. It's actually a ridge, uninhabited, where fortifications and trenches were built during the Austro-Hungarian era - says Dragan Djurovic, known as Djuro, deputy commander of the intervention platoon “Dragan Nikolić”, named after its first commander, who was killed in the very beginning of the war.

Djurovic says that about 120 people passed through his platoon, and they always went to the most difficult places.

- My pre-war friend Ziko was with us in a number of operations. As a journalist, but also as a fighter. In the beginning, he spent some time in his Miljevina, but then mostly with us – Djurovic says.

One day before he came to the fatal Medena Glavica, Elez was in his native Borjanice, at the funeral of his uncle, who was killed.

- He told his mother he would be back by Saturday. He was planning to get engaged to the girl he had been with for a long time. At the time of war, you come a day or two earlier and you are get engaged, married, baptized... Nothing was planned in advance; nothing was made grand - sister Slavojka says and adds that the woman he was supposed to marry had passed away a few years ago.

When he returned to Foca on the evening of June 9, Elez went to his friend Vlado Djajic, with whom he was in Sarajevo during the studies.

- I don’t have a brother, Ziko was like a brother to me. Ranko Miloradov Ziko, as we affectionately named him – was a poet, human being, rebel. He was ashamed just to report, so he fought when he had to. In those days, it was rather hard on the front towards Cajnice. The fighting was going on for about ten days, and Ziko left the front near Cajnice two days before his death because his village, at Miljevina, was attacked at the same time. When the attack on Miljevina was repelled, on June 9, 1993, he came to Foca and had dinner with me - Djajic tells UNS and continues.

- He brought me books, including Alija Izetbegovic’s “Islamic Declaration”, and I just returned from Belgrade, and brought him Milovan Djilas’ “Montenegro”. We talked long in the evening, he told me he was going to Cajnice in the morning, to see what was happening and make a report. He followed his heart. It was as if he felt guilty he had previously had to leave that front because of Miljevina.

They were sitting in the yard, Djajic says, arguing heatedly, and his wife asked them to come in the house.

- He didn’t want to, he went to the apartment where he was staying and as if was saying goodbye: “Here, brother, I’m leaving you the gun, since I’m going to take a rifle”. He wanted to give it to me as a gift, but I didn’t take it, I said we would do it after the war. I gave him ammunition. It was actually a farewell, we kissed. In the morning, we met in front of the Foca municipality building, he went to Cajnice, and I went to the Kmur facility since I was in the communications system - Djajic explains.

Dragan Djurovic also met Elez on the same morning.

- I was going to a meeting, it was around 10 a.m. I hurriedly told him: “Ziko, you will go up with us when we return”, and he said: “No, I will hitchhike”. A little later, while going up, towards Medena Glavica, I met a truck with his body in it - Djurovic says.

Miodrag Miso Vujovic, a journalist in “Ekspres politika”, met his colleague the same morning in Cajnice. While Vujovic was reading his report sent on the previous day to the newspaper, Elez was standing next to him in a camouflage uniform. At that moment, the last photograph of Ranko Elez was taken.

- The photo in which Ziko is standing next to me was taken by Rade Bosnjak, a photographer in “Ekspres politika”, less than an hour before Ziko’s death. Ziko’s blank look seemed to foreboding an accident - Miso Vujovic says for UNS.

He met Elez in Miljevina, in the spring of 1992.

- “A big fire will break out here”, Ziko told me when we met. That night, we long talked about the suffering of those regions in the Second World War, about the false brotherhood and unity that never took root in Foca, about the mass liquidations of Serbs by the Handzar division, about the revenge of the Montenegrin Chetniks against the Muslims, about the Ponor pit, for which I heard then for the first time - Vujovic says and adds that Elez told him then: “The continuation of that war began in Sarajevo, with the murder of Nikola Gardovic in Bascarsija, on the first of March. I studied and lived in Sarajevo. It is no longer a city that rejoiced to life, open to all. Sarajevo was populated by the Sandzak folks and some unknown people, fierce and aggressive”.

Vujovic also remembers that Elez was depressed on that Thursday, because of his uncle, but he also told me he scheduled the engagement for Saturday.

- He said to his mother on his farewell: “I will pop to Cajnice, to make a report and will return home tomorrow”. He was in a hurry to meet his friends from Foca on that day, with whom he had come from the Drina to Jahorina and Igman. Everyone loved him. We parted ways, convinced that in the evening, as before, we would exchange information drinking brandy, with lower alcohol, the kind they made in those parts - Vujovic says and adds that Ziko and Rade Bosnjak went to the left, towards Medena Glavica and Potrkusa, and he through Kozara towards Dubiste and the Drina.

As soon as he took the photo, Rade Bosnjak set out, as he says, with a certain Colonel Maljkovic, who is no longer alive, to visit the front line, more precisely Medena Glavica, in the Oglecevo belt.

- Ziko runs after us, throws in his backpack while still running and jumps into the jeep, which was already moving. We got up there. There was an elderly man with a heavy machine gun on the plane, I try to take a photo of him, and Ziko tells me he is a warden in the prison in Foca, and that he also guarded Alija Izetbegovic (he was in the prison in Foca in the 1980s, author’s note). I cannot focus the camera on this old man, I try to catch him next to the Muslim wooden shed, a dug-in fortification made of beech logs and soil, which our soldiers nearly seized. While I am focusing the camera on the old man, someone next to me shouted: “Hey, journalist, be careful, they are shooting”. I turn around and see Ziko falling on the ground. I myself fell backwards, my bag opened, I am trying to collect everything. Someone says: “The journalist got killed”, I thought they were referring to me - Bosnjak says for UNS.

The bullet, he says, came from close range, maybe even from only 50 meters. He is convinced and 99% sure it was fired from the enemy’s side, because it was fired from the forest.

- In order not to be caught in the crossfire, Ziko was carried on a stretcher behind the water tank, where I hid myself. I heard that he breathed in or breathed out, I’m not sure what it was, I said “He is alive”, when the doctor from Banja Luka shook her head – no, he is not. The doctor took off his clothes, a small-caliber bullet from the factory “Pobjeda” from Gorazde, entered under his left armpit, and tore his loin on the right side. Colonel Maljkovic said: “This was your bullet. But it killed the only child”. And now I learn from you that Ziko, whom I met on the front line, was not an only child – Bosnjak says.

In the scanty information about the death of Ranko Elez in these three decades, it is also mentioned that at the time of his death the recorder was on and it recorded a statement.

- Possibly, he was always doing something. But at that moment, I was focusing on that old man, and I didn’t pay attention to Ziko – Bosnjak says.

Nedjeljko Pantovic, a fighter of the intervention unit, was also at Medena Glavica at the time.

- Ziko brought a bottle of brandy and a bottle of pear brandy to the front line to congratulate us because we made a great achievement and we seized the hill Medena Glavica in a battle on the previous night, which was important for further progress. Muslims had put pressure on Cajnice, raiding villages, and even killing the weak ones, so we had to stop it and create a corridor towards Zidine, which was the next hill, and which we conquered after Ziko’s death. He came to take statements, and a cameraman or photojournalist was with him”, Pantovic tells the story to the UNS and continues:

- We were joking, laughing, Ziko was in a half-lying position on a military bag. And just as he was getting up, he fell. There was a shot, it sounded like a muffled sniper shot, it didn’t come from far away, maximum 100 meters. If it had been an M48 rifle, the shot would have been louder, so I think it was a sniper. We thought we were under attack, so we jumped up.

Pantovic also remembers there was a water tank a little above them, at 300-400 meters”.

- There were Krajina troops from Banja Luka (the 1^st Krajina Corps of the Army of the Republic of Srpska had its headquarters in Banja Luka, author’s note). They had been trying for two days to seize those walls. Medics were with them as well as this water tanker. Our guys immediately told us that Ziko was shot under the armpit and the bullet came out on the other side. Although we jumped up immediately, there was no more shooting or clashes”, Pantovic says.

Vlado Djajic was already on the hill Kmur, where the radio-relay center for the entire Herzegovina Corps was located. He could, as he states, listen to all the developments within the responsibility area of ​​this corps.

- When I entered the building, I heard only one sentence through the communication system: “Ziko got killed!” And I heard celebrations on the enemy’s frequencies on the other side: “We killed a big Chetnik”! In the Foca brigade, they still didn’t know about it, so I immediately called, using a short radio transmitter, down to the intervention unit, and Coso (Branislav Cosovic, commander of the intervention unit, author’s note) and Djura. They said when they were leaving the position of Medena Glavica to Cajnice for ammunition replenishment, they met Ziko, who had gone up to the unit. And obviously, as soon as he climbed up, the enemy opened fire and he was killed by a bullet. He was in a hurry, going after the bullet”, Djajic says.

Bosnjak helped to put Elez’s body, which was on stretchers, into the truck and we set off towards Cajnice.

- The stretchers were a bit longer; we could barely fit them into the truck. At one point, the driver saw a snake on the road, he abruptly stopped, and Ziko fell off the stretcher. Somewhere halfway down, we met a vehicle with Coso, Zuro, and Rada Elez, a nurse, and Ziko’s relative; they were heading up to Medena Glavica. They stopped, Rada was crying for Ziko”, the photographer says.

The memories of Radmila Rada Susnjevic, née Elez, today differ from others in detail, which perhaps isn’t surprising.

- He was on the front line, he just arrived from home, and we lost an uncle. She was sitting with his friends, and Ziko asked: “Is this my sister’s bag?” and he lay down on that military bag. On that day there were no operations, a stray bullet hit him in the heart. He just bent forward. He was hit right in the middle of the chest. While I was taking the bandage that goes to the lung area in case of injury, he died. There was no exit wound; I think the distance from which the bullet came was big.

Dragan Djurovic, however, remembers that the encounter of their group with the vehicle containing Elez’s body was halfway down.

- We climbed to the position in a van, I even remember the guy who was driving the truck with the body. As we later analyzed, he was killed by a sniper, from a distance of no more than 150 meters, from a slope. And we are 99% sure that the Muslim positions did it - says Djurovic, who today is not sure who else was with him in the van apart from Cosovic.

Drago Todorovic wasn't with Elez on that fatal day.

- I was one kilometer and a half away from Medena Glavica the whole day, and I didn’t know anything until I came to Cajnice in the evening. They told me he was shot and wounded; they didn’t immediately tell me he was dead - Todorovic remembers.

Identification was done at the hospital in Foca by his brother Branko Elez.

- The bullet hit him below the heart, slightly to the side, which I saw when we dressed him for burial. I didn’t turn him over, so I didn’t see if he had an exit wound - Branko Elez tells the UNS.

In the hospital in Foca, there is not a single document about Ranko Elez, as his sister Slavojka Filipovic, who officially requested it, was told.

- The certificate of death, which I found in the office of the Veterans and Disabled Protection Office of the Municipality of Foca, says: place of death Medena Glavica, Cajnice, killed by a Ustasha sniper, unit TG “Drina” The certificate was signed by Colonel Mirko Broceta,- says Janko Filipovic.

The place where Elez was killed was later mined, as Vlado Djajic says, so they weren’t allowed to go up, and he doesn’t know if it has been completely demined to this day. He knows that his name was immediately carved on a tree under which he was killed.

The funeral was held in his native village of Borjanice.

- The battles started, few people attended the funeral because we had to work, send materials. And it wasn’t easy to go there; we had to go around, via Pljevlje -  Bosnjak says.

But Budimir Markovic, who delivered a eulogy, attended the funeral.

- When I was told he was killed, I was stunned. We immediately organized in the editorial office to go to Borjanice. And the funeral was devastating for me - says Marković, tearfully.

Posthumously, Elez was awarded the Order of Njegos, third class, by the President of the Republic of Srpska.

The name of Ranko Elez, as a journalist killed in the war, is mentioned at several places - in the UNS Dossier on journalists and media workers killed or abducted since 1991, on the list of killed journalists by the International Federation of Journalists, OSCE, Balkan Insight, Independent... The Committee for Protection of Journalists states that he was “killed by a Muslim sniper during the fighting between Muslims and Serbs near Foca”.

No investigation into the journalist’s death was conducted - just one more casualty in the war and on the front line.

- As we were told, he was at the front line, there were several fighters sitting there, and a bullet came from somewhere and killed him. He was dead on the spot. A stray bullet”, says brother Branko, while sister Slavojka adds:

- A few days before he was killed, a bullet passed above his head. Where, how, why, I don’t know, but he avoided one, the other he didn’t.

In agreement with the attacked colleagues and their editors, in accordance with the Agreement on Cooperation and Measures for Raising the Level of Security of Journalists, UNS reported three cases to the police.

The injured journalists, photo reporters and cameramen, who received medical treatment in the emergency centers, altogether six of them, gave statements to the police and in one case to the forensics experts in the emergency medical facilities.

According to the UNS data, three other colleagues reported the attacks to the police or are in the process of filing a report on assault, while the largest number of cases, although listed in the press releases of UNS and other journalistic and media organizations, remained officially unreported.

UNS, as a member of the Standing Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, which includes journalists’ and media associations and representatives of the police and the prosecution, will insist that the recorded attacks be investigated and punished. 

This non-profit association is not paying the high taxes because it has a large property and this is testified by the fact that if the owner of the same property had been be a Serbian tycoon, and not UNS, this tycoon would have been paying 2.5 times smaller amount.

In the terms of tax, therefore, it would have been more profitable for Miroslav Mišković, Philip Zepter, or, say, Petar Matić, who have nothing to do with the protection of journalists and freedom of speech whatsoever, to own, as large legal entities, the house of journalists than to his “small” owner – UNS.

If, for example, UNS would move its property from Belgrade to the center of Ljubljana (Slovenia) or Zagreb (Croatia), the capitals of member states of  the European Union, they would have paid three times lower tax or they would not pay it all because it does not exist. 

UNS data for the region show it is most difficult in the financial aspect to be a journalists’ association with the property in the Serbian capital of Belgrade because of the extremely high taxes and their selective collection.

Is there logic?

Representatives of the journalists’ organizations in the region have been confounded by the amount of over 60,000 EUR that UNS has to pay in this year as the owner of 3,370 square meters in the center of Belgrade.

To be more precise, the municipal tax authorities have been asking since a few days before New Year 40,000 EUR for the current and over 20,000 EUR retroactively for last year, for which UNS already regularly paid 15,000 EUR.

“The amount of 40 thousand EUR in taxes is indeed a huge amount. Last year, we paid a little less than 700 EUR for 182 square meters”, Anastazia Stepić from the Journalists’ Association of Slovenia replied to UNS.

In Slovenia, legal entities do not pay for the property tax, but they pay to the municipality an annual fee for the use of construction land.

“This amount varies from one year to another. It has gone up in the last couple of years. Last year, it was 3.83 EUR per square meter”, Stepić explained.

Thus, the tax on building land for the UNS property, if it were in Ljubljana and if we situated it at the site of the Slovenian Journalists' Association, would have been 12,907 EUR for the last year, which is three times lower than what UNS should pay in Belgrade.

Croatia’s system is even more favorable because there is no property tax for legal entities and citizens.

“We are not paying the tax on building land and property taxes. We are paying about 1,400 EUR annually as the utility fee that goes to the local self-government and this is paid by all citizens and legal entities”, Filip Lukina from the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) told UNS.

The HND building in downtown Zagreb has about 4,000 square meters, including the attic.

If UNS moved its property to Zagreb, the amount that they would be paying would be at least 30 times lower than in Belgrade.

There have been no surprises in the last ten years for the Journalists’ Association of Macedonia, which owns two buildings in the center of Skopje with a total area of 250 square meters.

“Once a year we get an invoice from the City of Skopje for payment of the property tax, which is always same - in the amount of 200 EUR”,  Elizabeta Stojanovic told UNS.

If UNS moved its property to the center of Skopje, they would be required to pay 2,696 EUR for the property taxes, which is almost 15 times lower than in Belgrade.

“In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we neither pay the property tax nor fee building land. We have premises with 270 square meters”, Amra Crvenjak from the Journalists’ Association of BiH said to UNS. Thus, the tax in Sarajevo would amount to 0 EUR for UNS.

Suffocation by taxes

The paradox of Serbian public finances, according to a survey carried out by UNS, is evident in the fact that the little ones need to pay considerably more than big ones.

For example, UNS as a small legal entity must pay 40,000 EUR for the property taxes per year, and the owner of a big business from the beginning of the text would have to pay only 15,000 EUR for the same property.

“A normal person cannot understand this. UNS was paying the taxes between 15,000 and 16,000 EUR, which is  more than in the countries that have two or three times better standard than ours. And now we are required to pay over 40,000 EUR, which I interpret as a pressure and tax prosecution”, Secretary General of UNS Nino Brajović says.

He explains that the actions of the tax authorities in the end of the last year occurred simply overnight.

He says that UNS consulted a number of experts, analyzed the opinions of the Ministry of Finance, the laws in this area, and finally concluded that the tax authorities made it possible from 2014 onwards for small companies that embraced the international accounting standards to express the value of property at fair market price and pay taxes accordingly as large companies.

“The tax authorities understood the scale of the disaster. They interpreted that the small business have the right to a fair value of the property if they accept the international accounting standards, abbreviated to which they are bound by the law. We concluded that with the change of the Law on Property Tax in the end of 2018, there was a turnabout that led to the discrimination of small ones and favoring of the large business”, Brajovic says.

Brajovic is concerned that the imposition of the staggering tax to UNS could be reasonably interpreted as a strong pressure on this journalists’ association, which puts its independent work at risk.

“UNS requested the data from all local tax administrations in Belgrade to whom else they imposed such a tax increase and they received 15 same answers -  ‘we do not have the requested information”, Brajović says.

Brajović says that UNS in such a situation that they must either sell part of the property or borrow from banks in order to pay the taxes.

While performing their duties, from 1998 to 2005, 15 Albanian and Serbian journalists were killed, kidnapped and forcibly disappeared in Kosovo. A three-member German Stern news crew was also killed.

Shaban Hoti, part of the Russian State Television news crew, killed on 21 July 1998. 

Ismail Berbatovci, a journalist, left for a scheduled interview on 23 July 1998. To this day, the family does not know what happened to him. 

Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić, journalists of Radio Pristina, disappeared on 21 August 1998 on the road near Rahovec/Orahovac.

Afrim Maliqi, Bujku journalist, killed on 2 December 1998 in Prishtinë/Priština.

Enver Maloku, head of KIC, killed on 11 January 1999 in Prishtinë/Priština.

Ljubomir Knežević, Politika correspondent and journalist of Jedinstvo from Prishtinë/Priština, disappeared on 6 May 1999 in Vushtrri/Vučitrn. 

Two journalists of Stern Gabriel Grüner and Volker Krämer and interpreter Sanol Aliti were killed at the Dulje pass (near Prizren) on 13 June 1999.   

Aleksandar Simović, journalist of Media Action International, killed on 21 August 1999.   

Krist Gegaj, editor at RTV Pristina, killed on 12 September 1999.

Momir Stokuća, photojournalist, killed on 21 September 1999 in Prishtinë/Priština.

Marjan Melonasi, a journalist of Radio Pristina, kidnapped on 9 September 2000.

Shefki Popova, journalist of “Rilindja”, killed on 10 September 2000 in Vushtrri/Vučitrn. 

Xhemail Mustafa, journalist of “Bota Sot”, killed on 23 November 2000, in Prishtinë/Priština.

Bekim Kastrati, journalist of “Bota sot’, killed in the village of Llaushë/ Lauša on 19 October 2001.

Bardhyl Ajeti, journalist and columnist of "Bota sot", attacked on 3 June 2005 in a village near Gjilan/Gnjilane, passed away on June 28, 2005.

The research we present today began when the Secretary General of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS), Nino Brajović, invited me in 2016 and suggested that we update the already existing UNS file on killed and kidnapped journalists in the territory of former Yugoslavia. It also continued and relied on the efforts of our colleagues at the UNS in Kosovo, who have been trying for years to find out what happened to our colleagues, and since 2012 they have been placing a plaque at the site where RTV Pristina journalists - Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj - disappeared, persistently repeating - We are looking for them!

At that time, we only had information about seven killed and kidnapped journalists and only some information about the circumstances under which these crimes occurred. In response to our intention to find out what happened to the investigations into the killings and disappearances of our colleagues, we came to the devastating conclusion that there were no attempts at effective investigating of Albanian and Serbian journalists cases. That is why today we do not know who the killers and kidnappers are. We know they are at large, unpunished. Only one, the killing of Shaban Hoti, was prosecuted before The Hague Tribunal. 

In the first texts published in the second half of 2017, we noted the ways in which investigations were hindered, highlighted the omissions and asked a number of questions to the competent authorities. From the date we started releasing our findings until the end of 2017, the number of initiated investigations in Prishtinë/Priština has increased from two to seven. Only then did Ranko Perenić's family receive a notification from EULEX that Perenić and Đuro Slavuj were “stopped on the road by an armed group of men with KLA signs, who threatened with weapons and took them in an unknown direction”. They were also informed that the investigation was closed in 2013.

The research included interviews with at least 200 interlocutors: relatives, colleagues, acquaintances and members of international missions, and thus, we obtained information that was not previously known to the public. 

Former head of the United States Diplomatic Observation Mission in Kosovo (KDOM) Shawn Byrnes said it appeared that in the region where Perenić and Slavuj were kidnapped Fatmir Limaj had the most influence, but that this overlapped with influence of KLA from the Pastrik zone, which was concentrated in Prizren, and that units controlled by Ramush Haradinaj also came to this site.

Milivoje Miki Mihajlović, former editor-in-chief of Radio Pristina and head of the Media Center in Prishtinë/Priština, also revealed that not long after the kidnapping, New York Times journalist Mike O'Connor saw a blue Zastava 128 car in Bela Crkva, by which Perenić and Slavuj went to work and the “Sonny” voice recorder they brought with themselves.

The UNS obtained information that the killing of Media Action International journalist and interpreter Aleksandar Simović Sima is the only killing and kidnapping of journalists investigated by EULEX as a war crime.

Through contacts with international institutions in charge or in touch with the rule of law, it turned out that they do not have, do not know where the documents on the killed and kidnapped journalists are, and do not know why this is so.

For some of the cases, we brought to UNMIK reference numbers of cases as recorded in their archive, but not even under these circumstances they have been able to find them. EULEX has claimed for nine years that it has no information about the kidnapping of journalists of Pristina’s Jedinstvo and Politika correspondent Ljubomir Knežević. Only after talking to former EULEX chief Alexandra Papadopulo, to whom we have presented our findings, the EU Rule of Law Mission, for the first time, acknowledges that they have information, but also informs us that they are no longer able to open investigations at that point. In short, instead of looking at the documents from the investigation, we informed them that they had the documents we were looking for.

The UNS also obtained information that also indicates the crime of obstruction of justice. Police supervised by UNMIK have not acted on prosecutors' requests in the investigations of cases of two prominent Albanian journalists. The information we have obtained indicates that during the investigation into the killing of journalist Shefki Popova, the competent prosecutor twice sought emergency assistance and police assistance, but they ignored those requests. Similar situation happened in the investigation into the killing of journalist Bardhyl Ajeti.

UNMIK has done nothing to conduct an effective investigation into the kidnapping of Kosovo Radio Television journalist Marjan Melonasi. Police opened the investigation only five years later. And closed it immediately. 

We asked our interviewees - do you think it was accidental that so many investigations into the killings and kidnappings of prominent journalists were “lost” in the handover process? 

In interviews with representatives of KFOR, UNMIK and EULEX, we have found that none of these missions investigated the killings of Afrim Maliqi, Bujku journalist, Politika photojournalist Momir Stokuća and RTV Pristina editor Krist Gegaj. However, we also found that the killing of Momir Stokuća was reported to UNMIK police and the report "disappeared" from their archive. Also, that KFOR soldiers in fact found the killed Krist Gegaj.

In the texts published in 2018, we indicated to the public that the initial investigation into the kidnaping of Ljubomir Knežević, a journalist of Pristina's Jedinstvo and Politika, has been terminated. That there are witnesses to the kidnapping of Aleksandar Simović Sima, we presented new findings on the investigation into the killing of journalist Xhemail Mustafa, as well as the fact that KFOR has refused to submit documents to UNMIK about the investigation into the killing of journalist Enver Maloku. 

Thanks to the UNS initiative supported by colleagues from the Kosovo Journalists Association, the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia and SINOS, the Assembly of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) adopted a Resolution on investigations into the killings of journalists in Kosovo. At that time, the names of the killed and kidnapped fellow journalists and media workers, Serbs and Albanians, were placed on the Council of Europe's Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Journalist Security.

Today, we are talking about a new resolution to be proposed on the next Assembly of European Federation of Journalists in Zagreb, whereby EFJ would underline once more its determination to see start of investigations, and murderers and kidnappers of our colleagues be brought to justice. In addition, this research will also be presented to EFJ members, on the margins of this meeting. 

After UNS research was published, Government of Serbia took a decision to expand the competencies of the Commission investigating killings of journalists to include also cases of journalist who were killed or disappeared between 1998 and 2001.

In 2018, we also published discussions with heads of institutions with which the status of these investigations was verified. Drita Hajdari, War Crimes Prosecutor of Kosovo Special Prosecution Office, wondered how local prosecutors would compensate for what the international ones had failed to do. 

When the journalist Gabriel Grüner, photographer Volker Krämer and their interpreter Sanol Aliti were murdered, their colleagues from the German Stern started investigating and collecting evidence, and writing about the circumstances of the killing and the alleged murderer. Based on this information, on 16 March 2001, State Prosecutor’s Office in Hamburg issued an arrest warrant against the defendant Aleksandar T. due to emergency suspicions about killing and robbery. 

Tanjug team, journalist Nebojša Radošević and photographer Vladimir Dobričić Kića, were taken captive on 18 October 1998, after starting off for their journalist assignment in the vicinity of airport in Slatina, Prishtinë/Priština. KLA members held them in captivity for 41 days. They are the only Serbian team of journalists who survived captivity, and there was no investigation ever about this kidnapping.

Former UNMIK police investigators, prosecutors and judges used to declare for UNS that they considered journalists being a political target, and that no special attention was ever paid to these crimes within UN rule of law system in Kosovo. 

Kosovo Special Prosecution Office prosecutor and coordinator for cases of attacks against journalists, Bekim Kelmendi, called upon all citizens who had information related to kidnappings and killings of journalists in Kosovo to report them to this Prosecution Office or the investigators of Journalists Association of Serbia (UNS), guarantying protection of their identity. 

For three years in a row, Journalists’ Association of Serbia presented data from its research to the public and the majority of interlocutors, relatives, associates and friends of killed and kidnapped journalists, as well as officials, were asked to talk about this topic for the first time ever. 

With this research, the list of all killed and kidnapped journalists in Kosovo was finally compiled, and it was accepted by international organizations dealing with this issue. 

UNS texts in Albanian, Serbian and English were transmitted by media in Prishtinë/Priština, Belgrade and EU. I would like to thank all media, colleagues who showed their solidarity. What is crucial is that this research encouraged others to publish articles, broadcast stories and shows related to this topic. Our gratitude goes to OSCE Mission in Kosovo for the support provided. 

This research and the whole file are of special importance, as they will serve not only as a book of memory but also as a means to fight that the justice is served and it reaches perpetrators, criminals and ordering parties, so that the families of these journalists can finally take solace and get the truth they have been searching for. 

On the day the crime took place, Sunday, 13 June 1999, Stern’s reporters had been in Prizren to report on the arrival of KFOR’s peacekeeping forces to Kosovo. About 5 PM, they took Senol Alit’s Mercedes, on which they had written the letters “TV” with duct tape, and headed east, aiming to return to their hotel in Skopje and send their text and photographs to the Hamburg head office from there.  

They took the longer route, across Suva Reka and the Dulje Pass, which was the better route for travelling at the time. As Stern’s investigative journalists discovered, the road was heavily congested, since it was the route used by medical doctors and paramedics at the time, as well as by numerous Serbian military vehicles, including a convoy of eight military freight lorries. They claim Serbian army officers had stopped the convoy at the crest of the Dulje Pass.  

At the same time, according to the statements obtained by Stern’s investigative journalists, a stolen Toyota driven by Aleksandar T.  had been travelling up the serpentines of the Dulje Pass at high speed. 

“The Toyota barrelled out of a curve at about 80 kilometres per hour and slammed into a lorry at the back of the convoy”, said one of the two Serbian soldiers, whom the investigating journalists marked as the key witness for the public prosecutor’s office in Hamburg. An older man and two children came out of the Toyota, while the driver engaged the reverse gear and applied full throttle, losing control of the vehicle and wrecking it in a ditch.  

Senol Alit stopped his car and asked through a rolled-down window: “What is happening? Why aren’t we moving on?” The older man who had emerged out of the Toyota approached them, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, and explained the convoy had been stopped by Serbian army officers and was being returned to Suva Reka. The older man then said: “But that’s impossible. KLA forces are there, they are shooting at everything”. Alit said in Serbian he had not seen any danger in Suva Reka. 

The article published by Stern on 22 March 2001 further states: “Alit’s accent – he was a Macedonian of Turkish descent – apparently irritated the old Serbian man, who was boiling with hatred. ‘You Albanian pig’, he yelled at him, ‘you’re lying, you want to lure us into a trap’. The old man was running through his jacket pockets and barking threats: ‘I’ll throw a bomb inside your car! I’ll kill you!’. He jumped on top of the Mercedes, apparently looking for a fight. The woman who had been with him in the Toyota then pulled him away. In the meantime, the driver, who had crashed the car, had returned to the road and was listening to the fight. According to witnesses, he grabbed the Kalashnikov from the old man and, without hesitation, shot through the open window inside the Mercedes from a distance of two metres.”

“What happened next has been corroborated by testimonies of witnesses. The Serbian soldiers reported from the spot that Aleksandar T. had emptied the entire magazine of the Kalashnikov. They stood so close that they felt as if the bullets were flying around their heads. When they stood up again, these two witnesses saw the shooter first dragging Gabriel Grüner from the front passenger seat and throwing him down on the road. According to the witnesses, Gabriel Grüner cried ‘Help!’ in English, and the shooter then pulled Senol Alit, a rugged former boxer, out of the car, dragged him across the road and then pushed his lifeless body down a cliff. According to the Serbs’ statements, the man then dragged Volker Krämer out of the car and tossed him to the road. He then sat in the Mercedes used by Stern’s reporters and headed alone towards Štimlje. A Serbian officer ordered the convoy: ‘Move! To Štimlje, immediately!’ He then gave instructions to his men in case they were subsequently interrogated by KFOR troops: ‘Say the KLA had ambushed the men and shot at them’,” Stern’s investigative journalists wrote.  

They claimed the crime police and the public prosecutor’s office in Hamburg considered the testimonies by these two men, Serbian reserve servicemen, tape-recorded by Stern’s investigative journalists, to be truthful.  

“Their statements are corroborated by the information Stern had obtained earlier with the help of British soldiers. A reconnaissance unit of the King’s Royal Hussars cavalry regiment had set up a checkpoint that day at the eastern end of the Dulje Pass, in Štimlje. The officers who had been interviewed recollected that evening in detail from their notes. About 7 PM, a convoy of Yugoslav military lorries which had been descending from the crest of the pass stopped at the checkpoint. Serbian soldiers informed the British about the lethal gunshots, allegedly fired by KLA fighters. Among the civilian vehicles that had joined the military convoy, the British noticed a light commercial vehicle with damage from a collision at the back. Accounts as to the vehicle’s colour vary in the statements of eyewitnesses, with some stating  it was green and others claiming it was blue. According to the British, the passengers on that lorry looked shocked and were extremely nervous. They yelled ‘They hit us!’ and ‘They killed a man at the pass!’”, the text states.  

It is also stated that three М-80 243 tanks from the Uroševac brigade had remained at the Dulje Pass. 

“One soldier came out of a tank, approached Gabriel Grüner and dressed his wounds. At that point, paramedics from Médecins Sans Frontières turned up. The soldier handed them Gabriel Grüner’s press ID and told them in bad English: ‘German journalist. Hospital’, before returning to his tank. The Médecins Sans Frontières determined Volker Krämer could not be helped. Gabriel Grüner was carried to the medical tent of a Canadian unit stationed nearby. The Stern reporter was fully conscious when paramedics changed his bandage. He said the Serbian army had been on the spot. ‘But they had not intervened’, he said. Serbian civilians shot at him and his fellow passengers. He kept repeating: ‘Why? Why were civilians shooting at us?’”, Stern reported.  

After an emergency surgery that lasted two and a half hours, he succumbed to his wounds at 10:02 PM at the British field hospital Brazda in Macedonia, with coroner’s report in Hamburg confirming eyewitness statements that the fatal shots had been fired from a Kalashnikov rifle at close range.  

All accounts obtained by Stern’s investigative journalists point to the conclusion that the alleged killer was Aleksandar T., a Russian who had “apparently joined the Yugoslav Army as a volunteer in 1998”. They also claim that an eyewitness recognised the man several days later in his Serbian hometown and that “after the war, Aleksandar T. stayed for a while at an army barracks together with many other Russian volunteers”, before allegedly disappearing. Later that same year, in 2001, Stern also reported Aleksandar T. was back in Moscow and working as a security guard.  

Joachim Rienhardt, one of the two journalists who had investigated the circumstances surrounding the death of their colleagues, has spoken to the Journalist Association of Serbia 17 years after writing the report with shocking discoveries. The investigation has not progressed since then.  

Rienhardt says that, at the time of the murder, everything in Kosovo was uncontrolled, unsafe, without much accurate information, and no police investigation was conducted. He says this prompted them to conduct an investigation of their own several days later. He added they had been to Kosovo more than 200 times to investigate, obtain details and interview all potential sources they could connect to the events, so as to piece together a picture of what had happened there. He says they eventually found two eyewitnesses, the two Serbian soldiers.  

They cooperated intensively with the German Federal Foreign Office, to obtain the execution of an international warrant issued to Russian prosecutors for the arrest of Aleksandar T. German officials later relayed to them they had been informed by Russian authorities that the person they were looking for had passed away, but Rienhardt doubts the veracity of that allegation.  

After being approached by the Journalist Association of Serbia for comments, the German Federal Foreign Office replied that “at this point in the proceedings, the FFO is unable to provide any information.” 

“Please refer your inquiries to the State Prosecutor’s Office of Hamburg, as the responsible legal institution. As the Russian authorities are conducting an investigation, I advise you to contact the Russian Embassy”, replied the German Federal Foreign Office.  

The Journalist Association of Serbia sent an inquiry to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation a year ago, but we have received no reply to date.  

“Regarding the case you have mentioned, please be advised of the following: a criminal investigation of this case was initiated by the State Prosecutor’s Office of Hamburg in June 1999. The investigation included autopsies of the two murdered journalists. In addition, several witnesses were questioned and an investigation was conducted in connection with a car that had been parked near the crime scene.” In addition, the Journalist Association of Serbia was told the Principal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Hamburg had sought legal assistance from Serbian authorities. 

“On 16 March 2001, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg issued a warrant for the arrest of the accused Aleksandar T. for suspected murder and robbery with homicide. On the basis of it, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Hamburg issued an international wanted notice in April 2001, followed by an arrest warrant for the accused Aleksandar T. in April 2005.
“To date, the accused could not be questioned because his whereabouts have remained unknown. In 2010, we heard it had been posited that the accused might no longer be alive. However, as there is no reliable evidence to support that, the search for the accused continues”, the Journalist Association of Serbia was told by the Principal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Hamburg.  

At the time of his murder, Mr. Grüner was 35 and had worked as a foreign correspondent for Stern for nine years. Mr. Krämer was 56 and had been with Stern for 30 years as a photojournalist, known for his photos of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, after which he went on to report from numerous crisis areas around the world. 

Their colleagues have not forgotten them. A memorial plaque was placed on 14 December 2006 to mark the spot where they were killed.

UNS: From 2007 to 2016, the HRAP considered 527 complaints filed mainly by Serbs against UNMIK. Among them are the families of murdered and kidnapped journalists. Were the cases of the killings and disappearances of journalists prioritized?  

 The HRAP was established as an advisory panel in 2006 by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in Kosovo, to review complaints submitted by any individual or group of individuals about alleged human rights violations by or attributable to the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), for the period from 2005 to 2008, and to issue non-binding advisory opinions and make recommendations to the SRSG for his or her action based on the HRAP’s findings. All complaints were examined in accordance with UNMIK Regulation 2006/12 of March 23, 2006. 

UNS: The conclusion of the HRAP is that the UN mission in Kosovo violated its basic principles and tenets, that it is responsible for violations of human rights and the right to life, because it did not investigate the disappearances and murders in 233 cases. In the complaints of the families of the journalists: Ljubomir Knežević, Marjan Melonashi and Aleksandar Simović, the same conclusion is reached. Does this mean that investigations into the murders and kidnappings of journalists were not approached with due care of the profession in public interest? 

HRAP opinions, which are all available online, summarize the Mission’s (UNMIK) submissions regarding the facts on individual complaints. This information can be found at: http://www.unmikonline.org/hrap/Eng/Pages/default.aspx

UNS: How do you comment on the fact that this particular case "got lost" in handing over the documentation from UNMIK to EULEX? 

HRAP’s opinion on the case contains information related to the circumstances of the handover of the files from UNMIK to EULEX. Nevertheless, please bear in mind that UNMIK’s responsibilities in the area of criminal justice investigations and prosecutions were transferred to EULEX in December 2008. EULEX completed its executive functions in Kosovo’s judicial system on June 14, 2018. Since that date, judicial and police investigations are carried out by the Kosovo authorities. UNMIK continues to urge competent authorities to take all possible steps to ensure that the criminal investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Knežević is continued and that the perpetrators are brought to justice.  

UNS: When it comes to the analysis of UNMIK documentation in the case of the disappearance of journalist Ljubomir Knežević, to the best of our knowledge, interesting facts have been identified by the Human Rights Advisory Panel. What are the facts and why did everybody remain silent about them? 

HRAP opinions, which are all available online, summarize the Mission’s (UNMIK) submissions regarding the facts on individual complaints. This information can be found at: http://www.unmikonline.org/hrap/Eng/Pages/default.aspx

The final report of the UNMIK Human Rights Advisory Panel states that there are significant omissions in investigative activities, such as handling the crime scene, "searching" of surrounding areas, gathering and preserving material evidence, recording witness statements. "There seems to have been a great deal of delay in trying to find and speak with witnesses. This is why it happened that witnesses died, moved, or forgot facts related to a case," the report states. How do you explain that the case of journalist Marjan Melonashi was opened five years after his disappearance? 

As noted above, HRAP opinions, which are all available online, summarize the Mission’s (UNMIK) submissions regarding the facts on individual complaints and provide the Panel’s own findings on the complaint. This information can be found at: http://www.unmikonline.org/hrap/Eng/Pages/default.aspx 

UNS: In the case of the abduction and murder of journalist Aleksandar Simović, UNMIK appears to have taken some steps, but the investigation has not been completed. Why? 

As noted above, HRAP opinions, which are all available online, summarize the Mission’s (UNMIK) submissions regarding the facts on individual complaints and provide the Panel’s own findings on the complaint. This information can be found at: http://www.unmikonline.org/hrap/Eng/Pages/default.aspx

UNS: The2000 UNMIK Police Annual Report states that 675 killings, 115 rapes and 351 kidnappings were reported to the mission from June 1999 to December 2000. The HRAP says that "a large amount of information was sent to the UNMIK by the Serbian authorities with information on various incidents, including the locations, dates and names of victims, suspects and witnesses, but that in most of these cases there was no proper cooperation between UNMIK and the Serbian institutions," which applies to both murdered and kidnapped journalists. What exactly is UNMIK 's fault? 

As noted above, HRAP opinions, which are all available online, summarize the Mission’s (UNMIK) submissions regarding the facts on individual complaints and provide the Panel’s own findings on the complaint. This information can be found at: http://www.unmikonline.org/hrap/Eng/Pages/default.aspx

The SRSG has provided timely and positive responses on HRAP recommendations, and where the Panel has found that UNMIK had failed to ensure protection of human rights in cases of missing persons, the SRSG has, among other things, urged competent authorities to take all possible steps to ensure the continuation of investigations and bring perpetrators to justice; and expressed regret over the lack of effective investigations by UNMIK, which was to a great extent a consequence of the unique challenges that appeared after the conflict in Kosovo.  

UNS: The conclusion of the HRAP is that the complainants are twice victims of UNMIK: originally, when their human rights were violated, and again, when they received no compensation through this proceeding. "The HRAP conducted a thorough analysis of the appeals lodged and encouraged UNMIK and the UN to undertake activities that would be beneficial to the complainants before the term of office of the HRAP ends. It is a shame that this did not happen." In each report, the HRAP also sought a public apology to the families as well as damages. In which cases did the families receive an apology and why did no one receive damages? 

UNMIK expressed regret that there was a lack of an effective investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Ljubomir Knežević and Mr. Marjan Melonashi, and abduction and killing of Mr. Aleksandar Simović. 

In relation to the HRAP’s recommendation to award adequate compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages in certain cases, UNMIK is not in a position to pay compensation but continues to communicate with relevant authorities about this issue, where possible. 

UNS: In its opinion, the HRAP recommended that the UNMIK Head of Mission apologize to the families publicly and through the media. Why was that not done? 

As mentioned in our answer to Question 8 above, UNMIK expressed regret that there was a lack of an effective investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Ljubomir Knežević and Mr. Marjan Melonashi, and abduction and killing of Mr. Aleksandar Simović. 

UNS: The HRAP also recommends compensation. Why was this not done?  

As mentioned in our answer to Question 8 above and as reflected in the SRSG’s decisions responding to each complaint (also available online), in relation to the HRAP’s recommendation to award adequate compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages in certain cases, UNMIK is not in a position to pay compensation but continues to communicate with relevant authorities about this issue, where possible.

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Kellock is one of the most most decorated Canadian police officers, with more than 36 years of experience in the Toronto Police Service and the Canadian Armed Forces. He was the first foreign police officer to be invited to assist the Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Divisions of the New York City Police Department after the 9/11 attacks. He was the chief of UNMIK’s Regional Serious Crime Unit in Priština between September 2000 and June 2001.

Today he serves with the military police as an advisor to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, as a Professor for the National Security Program at Durham College, a consultant on security matters and as a Director of the Royal Canadian Military Institute.

- I arrived in Kosovo at the beginning of September 2000 as an investigator and later took command of the Serious Crimes Unit. We worked with the Murder Squad, but had no jurisdiction on homicides that occurred prior to my arrival. We worked on cases of kidnapping and missing persons with the missing persons unit. That time was extremely difficult, because much of the infrastructure of the legal system was destroyed in the conflict.  

There was general mistrust among the parties and the United Nations (UN) encountered the kind of mistrust and hatred it had never faced before due to the fact that we had primacy for the first time in the history of the United Nations. Witnesses to crimes were afraid to report incidents due to threats and intimidation. Despite numerous demands for a witness protection program and weapons amnesty, we were refused by the UN authorities.

Some Reports on Journalists’ Murders Were Removed

UNS: What did your Unit do to shed light on the murders of journalists and media professionals and what were the results?

Kellock: These journalists provided information to the public that was contrary to the messages sent by the PDK. Threats and intimidation were the first steps. If the journalists did not give up, then kidnappings, beatings and murder of them and/or their family members followed.  

UNS: An investigation into the disappearance of colleague Marjan Melonashi was officially opened five years after the event. This is confirmed by the crime investigation unit files.

Kellock: I cannot say with absolute certainty why his disappearance was not investigated, but I can tell you that at the time when I arrived (September 2000), there was confusion in UNMIK. A hastily designed plan for police oversight in Kosovo was created without providing infrastructure, logistical, administrative and judicial oversight.

The first thing I created when I took over as Unit Chief was a case tracking system. Prior to that, all reports were submitted to whomever was on duty at the time, without any organized methodology of monitoring or providing necessary resources to investigate serious crimes. Reports had to be translated. Police officers from around the world had innumerable ways of writing reports and a wide range of investigative talents, qualifications and experiences. We know there were also PDK sympathizers working as language assistants or even in the KPS (Kosovo Police Service), who may even have removed reports if they got the opportunity to do so.   

UNS: In the investigation into the murder of journalist Shefki Popova, UNMIK police took documents from his house, the whereabouts of which are unknown.

Kellock: As I said, recording, storing and documenting evidence was ad hoc and often depended on the professionalism of the investigators and leadership. Also, evidence was generally retained by the investigator with no central repository for continuity and control.

UNS: Did you notice that evidence disappeared during investigations or that the investigations were not conducted conscientiously?

Kellock: Perhaps at the beginning of my tour, but I made a great effort to bring the best, qualified investigators into my Unit. I accepted nothing less than one hundred percent professionalism and objectivity. I dismissed several people for not being so. I also led investigations against UN employees when necessary and sent reports to the Chain of Command. Overall, my investigators worked on their assigned cases committedly, professionally and objectively and saw them through to the end whenever possible. We obviously had a challenging work environment with a lack of resources and manpower. We tried very hard to do everything we could, especially to comfort and support victims, witnesses and their families.

 Intelligence Services Interfered with Investigations into Journalists’ Murders

UNS: In its investigation, the UNS obtained information that the interests of intelligence services were involved in the murder of journalist Xhemail Mustafa, as well as that this might be one of the reasons why the killer’s identity is unknown. Do your findings confirm our suspicions?

Kellock: I believe they know who the suspects in his death are. Both PDK and LDK had people cooperating with various intelligence agencies to opposite ends, and that made work very difficult for us. External actors from the US, UK, France and other states did not respect the primacy of UNMIK police in criminal investigations after the cessation of NATO’s action in the region. I had information that in practically every case someone was working for someone else to achieve their goals.

UNS: During investigations, did you face any pressure or suggestion that certain investigations should not be conducted, or should be put aside?

Kellock: In every case that had a political background, I was under pressure from my superiors to be careful (which meant that they would have to approve everything before I took further steps), or I received clear direction to stop any further work. That is why we took former KLA commander Sabit Geci directly to the international court, so that they would deal with the charges against him and two others. After the convictions of Geci and his associates, my commander stated: “We were not sure if we were going to allow you to keep working on that,” but they were ultimately happy with the outcome as it gave significant credibility to the UN as our unit in particular.

I very much understood that all of these investigations had an impact on the credibility of the UN. We were expected to follow their orders, whatever they may be. But, we were there to follow the law, I could not compromise my professionalism and integrity, and that often got me into conflict with politicos who had other ideas – including Bernard Kouchner, whom I had escorted from crime scenes that he was trying to exploit.  

UNS: Aleksandar Simović was kidnapped in Priština, and then murdered. Momir Stokuća was killed in his apartment in Priština. These crimes occurred after the arrival of NATO in Kosovo. Did you know who was “managing” Priština? Was it the international forces that were mandated or the local KLA leaders?

Kellock: Interesting question. When I arrived, NATO still had the security mandate for Kosovo. The military had primacy, as we say, in the conduct of all operations. The UN had an interim administration mandate and attempted to carry out various authorities. Neither the KLA nor PDK had any legal authority. Nevertheless, they had influence.  KFOR had no criminal investigation capacity or the mandate to do so. That is why there is so much lacking in the way of evidence based investigations prior to the creation of UNMIK Police.

UNS: Were the local leaders ever called in for questioning? Did they ever talk about those crimes?

Kellock: Political and intelligence representatives talked with them in order to gain information on the direction in which the mission could proceed.

Removal of Evidence of the Murders and Kidnappings of Journalists

UNS: How do you comment on the disappearance of documents on the murder of Momir Stokuća from the UNMIK archive? How do you comment on the fact that an investigation into the case was never opened?

Kellock: We know that there were KPS (Kosovo Protection Force) members who were sympathetic to the PDK and former members of the KLA. If they were in a position to do so, of course they did everything to assist their political and former military masters, including intimidation of witnesses and removal of evidence. That is why we used multiple translators to get exact statements from victims and witnesses.  

UNS: Ljubomir Knežević disappeared in Vushtrri. The families of the kidnapped Serbs link some of the disappearances to the story of organ trafficking. What is certain is that some witnesses in Vushtrri identified Gani Ymeri as a kidnapper, who was a member of the Kosovo Protection Force, and the investigation was halted. Both the investigating judge and the prosecutor were replaced. Were there any other cases of discrediting international prosecutors and judges due to pressure from parallel power centers?

Kellock: Although I am not familiar with this particular case, this was in line with the absolute control PDK and Hashim Thaci had over everything that was going on in Kosovo. He operated with impunity and with the authority of the UK, USA and CIA. At the 1999 talks in Rambouillet, Madeleine Albright decided that Thaci was eventually going to be the head of state. I can also confirm the frustration that some international prosecutors had with the political pressure on them.  I know it forced one British prosecutor to actually leave the mission.

UNS: Did Kosovo and international centers of political power interfere with investigations into the murders and kidnappings of journalists and other civilians?  

Kellock: Absolutely, especially British, American and French intelligence services, and not just with journalists. Any academic, journalist or politician was subject to their influence, subtle or otherwise.

Kouchner Knew All About the Murders of Journalists and Abused His Position

UNS: When it comes to your work in Priština, two stories are repeated. Number one: that your superiors were unhappy about the arrest of Sabit Geci, one of the KLA leaders, and that after the arrest secret meetings were organized within UNMIK, where your bosses reconsidered the work of your unit. The other story is that allegedly (after Geci’s arrest) then Head of UNMIK Bernard Kouchner ordered that his explicit permission be requested in order to carry out searches of property owned by the leading families in Kosovo. What is true?   

Kellock: Both stories are true. Kouchner did order this and the only way to keep Geci, Ilir Tahiri and Xheladin Geci in custody was to take them before the international court. I am sure that, had we not taken them before this court, they would have been released and likely would have disappeared from the country, as was the case with the individual who had planted an explosive under a Niš Ekspres bus (in Livadice in 2001, journalist’s note). It was said that Ilir Tahiri and the younger Geci were working for French intelligence. That is why they managed to escape from Mitrovica prison soon after being incarcerated after sentencing. It was incredibly frustrating.

UNS: You said that reports on everything that happened in the field were submitted to Kouchner, i.e. that by chain of command he was aware of everything that happened: disappearances, murders, other crimes against civilians… He claims that he did not know. He reacted very strongly when asked about Swiss Senator Dick Marty’s report on organ trafficking in Kosovo. How do you comment on that?

Kellock: I officially state that the special representative of the UN secretary general was completely familiar with all criminal activities in Kosovo. I would take it a step further and state that he actually benefitted in some ways from his position.

UNS: Can one conclude that within UNMIK there was a culture of covering up crimes?

Kellock: Many countries had a vested interest in Kosovo, specifically the US. The construction of Camp Bondsteel through a signed agreement with Hashim Thaci, who was not the president at the time, indicated to me that he would undoubtedly become one. The US Administraton under the Clinton’s and Albright facilitated his presidency.

UNS: The period during which you worked in Kosovo also coincides with the time frame of Dick Marty’s report and the mandate of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague. Is there any hope that this court will bring justice to our colleagues, as well as to the other civilians killed and kidnapped in Kosovo?

Kellock: It has to. The court is the only hope for victims on all sides to get justice for what happened in Kosovo. As for the murder, intimidation and disappearance of journalists prior to my arrival in Kosovo, I can only say: any person, including journalists, politicians, educators or anyone who spoke out against the PDK was in extreme danger of their thugs, mostly associated with the Kosovo Protection Force. They operated with impunity under the authority of those who would later lead the country, backed by the US government. That was intimidation to the maximum – even I was subtly threatened after we arrested the Geci clan.

The Murder of Journalist Kerem Lawton

UNS: You also investigated the case of the murder of AP journalist Kerem Lawton, who was killed during a mortar attack near the border with Macedonia. The Albanian side blamed the Macedonians for the attack, while the Macedonians claimed that there was not even the slightest possibility that their soldiers had fired the shells. Still, it is obvious that there were armed forces that were not supposed to be there?  

Kellock: Very interesting case. Upon arriving at the morgue, I was met by a number of US military, police officers and officers in civilian clothes. The Americans demanded that an autopsy be carried out immediately so that the cause of death and type of weaponry used might be determined. There were several puncture wounds on Mr. Lawton’s body which appeared to be the consequence of an explosion and the entry of shrapnel to the body and head. The US representatives in attendance demanded an autopsy in order that they would retrieve and identify the origin of the weapons used, while UK representatives of the news agency demanded that the body be returned intact immediately to the UK. It was one of the most stressful days in Kosovo, and there were many such days.

UNS: The murder of Kerem Lawton created tension between Great Britain, whose citizen he was, and the United States. Was this a matter of hiding the details of the murder?  

Kellock: The thought was that Mr. Lawton was killed by ordnance fired from Macedonia, from the Tetovo or Kumanovo areas. The ordnance was believed to be manufactured in the US and/or a mortar type. When I brought the international investigating judge to the morgue, a daylong session of investigation and presentation of both countries’ opinions ensued. In the end, after much international consultation, the judge ruled that the body did not have to undergo an autopsy and that it could be returned to the UK immediately. The coroner was not equipped to conduct an autopsy according to European or North American standards. After that decision, I helped place the body in a body bag and then in a metal container that was welded shut, and then I escorted the remains to the Priština airport, where a UK aircraft was waiting with its engines on, to depart before an upcoming heavy storm. The Italian soldiers were running towards us and I was very concerned for everyone’s safety. However, in a surprising act of respect, they formed two lines and presented arms in a moving tribute to a correspondent who died in the line of duty. Everyone boarded the aircraft leaving cars with their engines running at the airport, and his girlfriend and I left standing on the runway in the wicked storm that had now decended upon us.

UNS: Did you and his family ever learn how he was killed and who the killer is?

Kellock: Even after attempts at finding out through the media, I heard nothing. The UK media representative there to retrieve Kerem Lawton had actually worked in Canada at Global News and I had hoped that I might learn something about this case someday. 

UNS: What is the likelihood of solving the murders of journalists and media professionals in Kosovo after all this time?

Kellock: I am afraid that, as long as Thaci is in the president’s seat, it is highly unlikely that any objective investigations will shed light on the fate of the missing and murdered.

It will be interesting to see if Kosovo will enter NATO and at what cost. Another interesting investigation was the massacre in Drenice – Geci’s home village… Why were our investigators attacked while trying to determine who committed the killings? Probably because the Serbs were the ones really responsible.

Crying was heard in the Media Action International’s Serbian studio the following day.

- His father came and said “Alex was murdered”, told Anderson.

According to UNMIK‘s intelligence, Simović was kidnapped on August 21st, 1999 in Café Picasso in Priština. Anderson‘s memories match UNMIK’s document description  and the above mentioned facts on the events of  August 20th,  1999 at the Qafa jazz club the Journalists’ Association of Serbia wrote about.

- It happened only a few days after I came to Kosovo. I don’t remember the details about that night. I still have a recording of a female singer at the bar, as the girl from Skopje informed me I shouldn’t record other people as most of those probably were in the UCK, our interlocutor says, and adds that that nobody, including the Tribunal, had ever asked him to speak about that subject.

Anderson came to Kosovo for the first time in 1999 at the invitation of the Media Action International NGO to make two production studios for news programmes in Albanian and Serbian. He trained young journalists and producers.

Marjan Melonashi, a missing journalist, was among them.

- I really liked Marjan. I would say we were friend. He came to me and said “I would like you to teach me to edit programmes”. I accompaned him in his field work to record stories. I think he was afraid. Such a nice young man. One night we drove in his car and he went out to buy ćevapi. He came back and said: “This man told me he knew who I was and that he would get me“, states Anderson.

He said he had left Kosovo in September 1999, and Marjan, Olivera Bernadoni and another colleague continued doing this big and demanding job. They made a lot of great programme.

- When I came back in 2000 I heard what happened to Marjan, Anderson tells UNS.

Before Kosovo, Brian was a programme editor for a radio station in Scotland, and then worked in China.

- I wanted to do something useful. I was first invited by an NGO to go to Macedonia, make a radio studio and teach people how to do half-hour radio broadcasts for Kosovo refugees, Anderson said.

He adds he was told to make studios for Albanians and Serbs in Priština and help in the making of the programme.

- Priština resembled a dumpjard. The Albanians won the war, and the country was one big party. Albanian reporters were able to create programmes and travel, Serbs were afraid and I had to drive them in my car. I bought them food as they were afraid to leave the studio building. I felt hatred in the air. You could sense it more than anything else, testifies Anderson.

He points out that quality journalism had been impossible back in 1999, but that it had been important to keep trying. He says that it is incredibly important for media not to separate, but include both sides.

- When I returned to Kosovo in 2000, a Serbian working in Priština told me this: ”I wanted to be a reporter and I looked forward to meeting Western journalists, but of all that I met, I would only call two people human beings. You are one of them”. It is the biggest compliment I have received. I came to Kosovo as a “professional” and left as a human being, says Anderson.

After Kosovo, Anderson worked similar jobs in South Africa, Botswana, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Today he lives in Scotland and manages the www.simplifeye.co.uk website. He says he cried many times since we had asked him to speak about Aleksandar Simović.

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Prosecutor Kelmendi urges all citizens having information regarding the kidnappings and murders of journalists in Kosovo to contact the Prosecutor’s Office or the investigators of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS), guaranteeing that their identities will be protected. He also underlines that the law also allows exemption from criminal liability of those who agree to stand as witnesses for the Prosecutor’s Office.

UNMIK deserving of being held criminally liable for its investigations, disbelief over EULEKS’s investigations  

After years without investigations under the UNMIK mandate of, and then of EULEX, all journalist murder and kidnapping cases were taken over by the Kosovo Prosecutor’s Office in December 2018. This is the first time that a prosecutor's office has a complete list of all investigations at the same address, but also that all investigative actions start from the beginning, for the third time.

Regarding the claim of the families of murdered and kidnapped journalists that EULEX prosecutors have neither called nor informed them, Kelmendi stresses that "this is not normal".

 - A Prosecutor must be in constant contact with the aggrieved parties, ready to receive and listen to them and request information from them. If you are asking me if our prosecutors are doing it now, I know that they have taken certain investigative actions in several cases. I have also forwarded some information I received from a journalist from Serbia (author’s note - data from UNS Investigation) to them. Today I have the exact address to which I forward the information, but as a prosecutor I am not satisfied until I see the results. If a murder was committed during the war, it is very difficult to come up with evidence. That is why I think it would be important that the authorities in Pristina and Belgrade meet and exchange information.

After 1999, the Prosecutor recalls, there were situations when KFOR soldiers conducted crime scene investigations.

- How can a soldier, without adequate knowledge, conduct a murder crime scene investigation? We did not have any professional police, or good investigative judges, or prosecutors to conduct professional crime scene investigations. All of this affects the performance of our prosecutors who have been awarded the cases, 20 years later. Most murders, including the murders of journalists, were not committed by one person. Some were e.g. drivers, and one day they would wage a war against their souls. I'm optimistic and hopeful that they will show up and say, this is how it happened, this is the evidence, or show us the location of the evidence.

However, in the investigation into the kidnapping of Ljubomir Knezevic, the witness refused to face the suspect in the courtroom and say what he had seen. When the court left him no other option, the witness changed his statement. Commenting on this situation, our interlocutor refers to the applicable Criminal Procedure Law that allows the witness to be heard again and his statement to be admissible into evidence, although it was previously rejected.

The investigation into the murder of journalist Shefki Popova indicates that UNMIK police have taken from his home everything that could be considered potential evidence. Data from UNS Investigation indicate that the investigation was obstructed during the mandate of the UN judiciary, and afterwards, in the process of handover of jurisdiction, this documentation did not reach EULEX. The question is what has happened to the evidence taken from Popova’s house.

UNS: When someone says that he/she has misplaced the evidence, is your first thought that it was intentional?

Kelmendi: That is obstruction of justice - nothing else. That is a criminal offence. Anyone who has obtained evidence and does not know where it is now, must be held criminally responsible, regardless of where he/she comes from.

Each piece of evidence is entered into the register by the judge, and if it is not known who could have removed it from the case file, then the judge is held liable. We had a lot of problems with UNMIK, and they claimed international immunity, which is absurd. If you have the jurisdiction of a judge or prosecutor in Kosovo, then you must always be held liable, wherever you are.

UNS: This is not the first time that you have heard about such situations, of evidence, cases being misplaced?

Kelmendi: We talk about it publicly, everywhere and with everyone, without any fear. It is true that this has happened in other cases as well, especially in cases where the victims are journalists.

UNS: Is politics the biggest obstacle to these investigations today or something else?

Kelmendi: Time is the biggest problem, because 20 years have passed already. Politics is quite different than in 1999 and no longer has such an impact so as to prevent investigative actions. We used to be afraid to say certain people’s names, and now we see them as defendants in court. We used to be afraid to mention certain politicians, and today they are convicts. Prosecutors and judges are much more independent, as well as the police.  

When it comes to investigating journalist murders, Prosecutor Kelmendi says it is important for witnesses to come forward.

Kelmendi: I urge all citizens, wherever they are, to forward information, if they have any, and I guarantee that their identity will be protected and that no one will know who the information has come from. They may contact us directly, or through you, in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It is important for you to convey that our Criminal Procedure Law allows a person who has witnessed a crime, and has perhaps even been a little involved, because he/she was at the crime scene or had to be at the crime scene, to be exempt from prosecution. Justice collaborators may be protected and we may protect them from threats and potential retribution. If they are mistrustful, they may address me personally, and I guarantee that the public will never find out who they are. They can help a lot and then sleep peacefully afterwards.

Information from UNS Investigation extremely important for investigating crimes against journalists

For the first time, we have confirmation that the data, published in a three-year UNS investigation, have been admitted by the Prosecutor’s Office as important for the investigation.

Kelmendi: This is very important information. We are required to verify all pieces of information that help us with our investigations through the police. I always send what is written in the media to the police. The police then compile a report for us, which we use together with the information we have received from your texts. Please be assured that your information is very important to us. I would also like to stress that there is no statute of limitation on cases relating to journalist murders and any new information and evidence helps us move forward.

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Lukač was a reporter for TANJUG in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. Director Zoran Jevđović sent his for the assignment from Belgrade as an experienced reporter who used to report from the war fields in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The kidnapping of his colleagues came particularly hard on him, as it was he who was supposed to be in the vehicle with the PRESS sticker, halted by KLA. 

- That morning, the police notified me, that a car full of bullet holes was found near the airport. I was supposed to go and work in the fields with Kića who has been just like me across all the war-zones and we were a tandem. At the same time we learned that the OSCE Observer Mission headed by William Walker should arrive. As that was the most important event of the day in Serbia, I stayed in Priština and told my colleague Radošević to take over the field assignment. The area I sent him to was supposed to be a safety zone. Kića hurried to make the best photos possible assuming the logic that they were safe as they were within the reach of the Yugoslav Army mortars, and the army was positioned at the airport. Radošević was not acquainted with the terrain, although he was from Priština. They rushed straight into the KLA members, tells Lukač. 

Weary because the colleagues have gone missing, Davor Lukač pulled all the strings he had as a journalist – and there were many as all – soldiers and policemen just like reporters were going from one war-field to another. Even a reconnaissance aircraft was lifted to the air. 

- The aircraft recorded the TANJUG’s “Yugo Florida” in the Sedlare village. Even more important information was – there were no bullet holes on the vehicle. A huge stone was lifted off our chest. However, they didn’t let the Red Cross to visit them, so we obtained the information in other ways. We kept pressuring Adem Demaqi and Ibrahim Rugova. At each press conference I kept asking the same question. When I went to Demaqi’s office, he told me: “Let them write a request for amnesty”. It crossed my mind that they’re alive and that he knows where they are. And then one Albanian journalist, an elderly gentleman (now deceased, unfortunately), secretly passed on to me that they will be freed on the Flag Day (28^thNovember), but that I was not supposed to tell anyone as someone could then do something stupid, says Davor Lukač.

The TANJUG reporters were freed in front of the TV cameras in the Dragobilje village on the 27^thNovember 1998. In the meantime, their colleagues journalists kept protesting in Belgrade, but also in Priština. A long time reporter of FoNet thinks that the level of solidarity and persistence of journalists significantly affected the decision to free them: 

- It also helped that they are not maltreated in detention as the public was aroused. Foreign reporters also supported our side. The KLA feared the finger pointing if they kill the reporters. Kića hasn’t been drinking ever since the Dayton Agreement. On the night when he was freed – he had a rakija. The police came at that moment. They said they wanted to interview him. I asked Kića if he wanted that. He replied: It doesn’t even cross my mind. I told the policemen: Gentlemen, please do come tomorrow. 

The Radio Priština crew - Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj, went missing on the 21^stAugust 1998. Their families and colleagues still keep looking for them. 

- I had so many topics I used to discuss with my countryman Slavuj, and so we were sitting together two nights before their disappearance. The worst thing is that the reaction in case of Perenić and Slavuj was too late. The question is whom they came across and what happened to them. In this case we faced the wall of silence. What I know for sure is that the then Director of Radio Priština, Milivoje Mihajlović, reacted immediately and without delay and raised the alarm, but it did not get any feedback. 

Daily killings

The murder of Enver Maloku, journalist, writer and chief of the Kosovo Information Centre (KIC), who was killed on the 11^thJanuary 1999, was largely discussed – recalls Lukač – but the reasons for the crime remained hidden behind the veil of secret.

- As for the case of Maloku, the only fact is that the man is dead and that each side has their own story. It was the time of intra-Albanian liquidations caused by political dominance, but there were also the intra-Serbian ones. There were murders of criminals, and for them the situation was ideal to attribute the killings to the other side. An Albanian mafia guy called Tito was murdered in a Priština suburb. Everyone was aware it was the war of Albanian criminals among themselves, but they immediately said – the Serbs killed him. I was unaware of the kidnapping of Ljubomir Knežević in May 1999. Albanian reporters back then used to tell me – the guys from Drenica come here and they do not care about anything. And that’s exactly how it was. And how important was a reporter then and on top of it – in such a small place like Vučitrn. 

The reporters who witnessed crimes in the war fields of former Yugoslavia, fought against their traumas by working, by throwing oneself into the machine which leaves no room for thinking about what one has been through. 

- In Kosovo, when we were in the fields – the police was securing the roads while KLA were shooting. I was watching how the bullets cracked the asphalt behind the car. One policeman fell, he was shot. A month later I learned he died. I felt horrible. I asked myself thousands of times – was he securing that road because we were passing there? The worst thing I experienced was when a car where I was got shot multiple times near Gornja Klina. And the biggest fear I felt was when our tire got flat near the place called Careva česma in 1999 (on the Priština-Peć road). That is the spot which divides Drenica in halves, and where they leave a Serb on the road when they kill of kidnap him just in order to instigate fear in the others. It was foggy and the visibility was not even one meter in front. A colleague was driving, while I was going on foot in front of the vehicle, so that he could see me, and I could see the road. We were hoping that KLA would not spot us because of the fog. What we have is the reporters’ Vietnamese syndrome that doesn’t differ much from the one of the people who took part in combat operations. The worst thing is to remember. But not in any way and under any circumstances in front of the children. 

Rattlesnakes in Kosovo

 In addition to the risks the profession is exposed to, says Lukač, it also used to happen that the profession was sacrificed. 

- There were cases of professional and judiciary abuse such as interrogation of the Mazreku brothers in front of the cameras by then journalist Milovan Drecun and about the Klečka crime. I asked the investigative judge – aren’t you ashamed? The two of them were held there beaten up, they couldn’t even walk. If Drecun asked them if they would kill their own father – they’d say yes. In summer 1998 we were taken to the Ćafa Dulje fold and were shown how KLA had the underground shelters and bunkers. I walk a bit further on and I see these were the bunkers and trenches of the former Yugoslav Army (JNA). I realised it was a backup line position in case of an attack coming from the direction of Albania, and as KLA had among its members the ex JNA officers who knew the positions of trenches and bunkers, they just dug ‘em up and made them functional. When I said out loud what I noticed, they attacked me and said I was a traitor. On the next day, the Priština daily “Jedinstvo” ran the article titled “Captured Serbs Kept in Bunkers with Rattlesnakes”. How did the rattlesnakes find themselves in Kosovo?  

Except from situations like these, Lukač points out that there was more responsibility among reporters than today, because “they were professionals”. 

- I think that solving of murders and kidnappings of reporters remains important nowadays only for their families and none else. Those people are forgotten because the rhythm of life is such that things that happened only the day before yesterday are also forgotten, and not to mention something that had happened 20 years ago. Who remembers Milan Pantić today or the reporters killed in Bosnia? 

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Vladimir Dobricic, born in 1948 in Tuzla, died at the end of 2003. In a conversation with the Journalists’ Association of Serbia, his son Ivan, talks about how everything that had happened to his father was quickly forgotten, and that nobody has contacted his family to talk about this topic.

- My father liked photography and began taking amateur photos back in high school, at the beginning of the 60’s. He managed to get a job in the Tanjug at a very early age, in 1969.  That was another country, and his job involved beautiful and nice photo shoots. 20 years later, during the revolution in the neighboring Romania, when Ceausescu and his wife were executed, father captured the event as a Tanjug’s photographer. Such type of photography ,,kind of got into his blood" and quite soon after that, in 1992 he was in Borovo Selo in Croatia, later in Benkovac and Knin. When the war in BiH started, he spent more time there than at home. In 1998, intense fighting in Kosovo started. He went there, although there were other photojournalists in the field. He wanted to go and spare his younger colleagues, because he was more experienced. He took photographs in Djakovica, Kosovska Mitrovica, Pec, everywhere ... Although he was in Pristina, we were in contact - not every day, because mobile phones were expensive and rare at the time, but he reported in - Ivan Dobricic recalls.

Vladimir Dobricic, said in his only interview for the "Nedeljni Telegraf" that on 18 October, Nebojsa and he went to visit the site of shooting which had happened the day before. They came across people in uniforms, but, as he said, he did not initially think that they were members of the KLA, because the group was near Slatina, in the artillery range of the Yugoslav National Army. Men in uniforms with rifles asked him to stop the Tanjug's official white Yugo Florida. They were imprisoned on the spot.

- It was morning, short news were being aired on BK Television. I heard on the TV in the other room that journalists Vladimir Dobricic and Nebojsa Radosevic had disappeared. I thought the worst. During the day, the Tanjug told us the same thing. They had nothing else to say except - they are gone. Quite a lot of time has passed until Mimico Djorgovic, the owner of the "Nedeljni Telegraf" in which I worked, said that he had information that Nebojsa and my father were alive, that they should be released and that their release was being negotiated. In the end, this turned out to be true, Ivan reminiscences.  

Freedom for TV

The Tanjug’s journalists were released before television cameras in the village of Dragobilje in Drenica. Domestic and foreign journalists were invited to the KLA headquarters for this occasion.

- My father called me from a satellite phone. While I was talking with him, only one thing was on my mind - if they survived, they had to have been beaten black and blue. I was trying to hear if he was lisping, if he had all his teeth or if all of them had been knocked out. He sounded quite normal, and witty as he was, he said that they had been "packed" into a vehicle, and he asked them to take him to "Kod kralja". To the pub. The next day he was in Belgrade. For the next five years, he did not talk much about those 40 days, but what he did say was said jokingly. For example, they were transferred from one prison to another- in fact these were some basements. The snow was so high that the tractor they were riding on got stuck. The driver picked up his Kalashnikov and fired into the air in Morse’s code. A "response" in the same way was heard from a distance. After a few hours, a team came to unstuck it. While he was in a basement, he told me that he was listening to his "jailer" unsuccessfully trying to "assemble" his Kalashnikov for hours. The jailer was clattering for hours, until father knocked on the door and asked – Do you want me to assemble it? And he did. He also said that they were forced to sing some songs. The whole time he was there they did not see any hygienic supplies. They were given a small quantity of food every day . Father lost almost 10 kilograms - says Ivan Dobricic.

At the time of his capture, Vladimir Dobricic had several photos on him, inter alia,  of Ibrahim Rugova, Veton Surroi, but also one that he always carried in his wallet.

- It’s a photograph with Slobodan Milosevic and father thought that they had survived precisely because of that photograph, which seems rather illogical. The moment they realized that they were facing the KLA soldiers with balaclavas, Nebojsa shouted: ’’Run’’, and my father stopped the car. A commander who spoke Serbian came up to them and said: ’’Had you gone two more meters, you would have been shot. Now, get out!’’  They blindfolded them and tied their hands. My father was neither a supporter of Milosevic, nor a party member, he rather carried that picture in his wallet "just in case" he were stopped by the traffic police. People from the KLA immediately searched them, took all their documents, and loudly commented on what they had found. At one point a  hush fell over the group. Father immediately knew that they had seen the picture with Milosevic and thought: "These few seconds are crucial - they will immediately kill us or we will survive." They survived. Father told me that this KLA also had factions and that they were captured by the softest one - says Ivan Dobricic.

Investigation would mean a lot to us

- My father died suddenly in late 2003 – he lived another 5 years after being held captive. You are the only one who has contacted our family since then. And then, I do not want to be derisive, but rather to present the facts, Nebojsa and he got a week for two in Kopaonik from the state and some money, which father spent on a suit. It would mean a lot to us if this crime were prosecuted. We were sorry, especially when he fell ill, because of his treatment at the hospital. We never asked for anything special, aware of what people had lost in those wars, but there was no place for him in a hospital room either. He was lying in the corridor. I remember that my mother said: "For goodness sake, he was a prisoner in Kosovo".

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On 15 March Pješčić called Jugoslav Ćosić and according to the N1 allegations, introducing himself as an employee of the American Embassy, protested because of that television’s reporting on massacres in mosques in New Zealand. In his statement for UNS, Pješčić claims that he called Ćosić in order to ask him why N1 was “the only one in this planet” that conveyed the information that “nonsense were written in Cyrillic alphabet in Serbian” on the weapons and that the shooter glorified Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadžić. “I called him and asked him: Jugoslav, where did you get that information? Did you approve it as an editor?” Pješčić claims, adding that he had talked to Ćosić before that and that they had “common friends”.   

“We were socializing most actively when I was the spokesperson of the Association of Internet Providers of Yugoslavia, SRJ. You have all that on the internet. You have his texts on that subject on the internet. He attended all my press conferences. It was 2003, 2004, or I don’t know which one. I can’t remember. I know that he helped us a lot then. Media followed up the pressure Telekom had exerted on us; not just on my company, but on all companies that had dealt with internet providing”, Pješčić claims.

During 2002, Beta agency, B92 website, weekly magazines Vreme and NIN published the news, analyses and comments on conflict between Telekom and internet providers, and statements on behalf of the group of companies were given by Bogoljub Pješčić. Name of Jugoslav Ćosić cannot be found in any of those articles. 

Pješčić claims that he did not sell the company to Dragan Šolak, but data of the Commission for Protection of Competition as of 2014 show that “Absolut OK” (afterwards renamed into “Absolut solutions”) was a part of Šolak’s SBB group.

Bogoljub Pješčić did not want to confirm that he had anything to do with Facebook page “Serbia, our country” from which journalists were being insulted.

Pješčić: Why do you want to know about that? Even if I had or had not anything to do with it, that’s my private matter.

UNS: I’m just asking.

Pješčić: Take a better look at that page and it will be clear to you what this is all about and whose webpage that is/

UNS: Do you follow that webpage?

Pješčić: I do, pretty much, because of this current situation.

UNS: You do not participate in creating the contents?

Pješčić: I would not make any comments. But regarding who’s behind it, you can see that on the webpage itself. It is not a political party. It is about a media outlet. Foreign media outlet. It’s all written there. Do you want me to tell you –“BrighBart”? By the way, it is a media company of Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon. And he has such companies region wide. He had one in Great Britain because of the “Brexit”. He had one in Spain when he was overthrowing the government. He had one in the Netherlands, and then they made some kind of a deal.  

In his statement for the Journalists’ Association of Serbia, Jugoslav Ćosić denied knowing Bogoljub Pješčić. “Public Prosecutor asked for additional explanations from the police, so today (on Friday, 29 March) I also gave a statement. I have never been a friend of that man in my life, I have never talked to him; I have never even met him at least not that I remember of. He claims that we have been friend since the 1990s and I was out of Serbia during the entire period of the 1990s. And today I reiterated that he had introduced himself to me as an employee of the American Embassy. Later he tried to present this conversation as a conversation between two acquaintances, which is incorrect. I reiterated that it had been told to me in that conversation that I would have a life ban of entry to the USA, and that N1 will suffer the consequences for its reporting and that I should speak up about events in New Zealand”, Ćosić said.

Being asked did and why N1 remained silent before the public that on 17 March Pješčić gave a statement to the police upon criminal charges of his lawyers, Ćosić claims that no one informed N1 of the respective and that he, actually, found out about that statement when Pješčić published it on his Twitter.

Related to the issue that Pješčić was a co-owner of the “Absolut OK” that was sold to Dragan Šolak, Ćosić says that he got that information also once Pješčić publically revealed who he was. Being asked whether someone else from the company Pješčić had obviously been cooperating with knows him, he says: “I know nothing about it. I have become the director four years ago, and I heard of all those information later.”

Pješčić’s allegation that he had talked to him on the phone for half an hour Ćosić confirms and says that he did that because the experts advised him that one should talk as long as possible with those who send anonymous threats so that they would give themselves away. Ćosić’s lawyers filed criminal charges against a John Doe for an act of coercion and passing off. In his statement to the police as of 19 March Bogoljub Pješčić said that two days after the disputable phone call he sent “a memorandum of the State Department he had asked for as well as one book as a gift and a short letter written in hand in order to be personal, where I asked him only to consider his act of publishing my phone number and that I would never do that to him no matter how much I disagreed with him at given moment “to Ćosić.   

Ćosić said that he found out only later who had called him then. “I found out later who he was, by being called by some people who realized that they had his phone number in their phonebooks, after we had published it. And I did not publish the phone number of Bogoljub Pješčić, because I did not know at that moment who I was talking to. I published the phone number of a John Doe who threatened me and I did that upon the lawyers’ advice.”

Only a few days before conveying disputable statements and messages to the management of N1 and Beta, Bogoljub Pješčić had become a member of UNS and based on the confirmation by “Večernje Novosti” that he was working for them part time as a journalist in the internet desk. Confirmation that Pješčić is a journalist was signed by the director of “Novosti” Radomir Vidaković. UNS initiated a procedure for determining the accuracy of that confirmation. By the way, in 2014 “Novosti” published a coverage from a Masonic Temple in Belgrade and a conversation with Bogoljub Pješčić who had been introduced then as a head of a youth organization “DeMolay”.

DeMolay has 70 members in Serbia- Bogoljub Pješčić says. – We have more and more interest by the young people for acceptance in the society that enables them to be honorable men, true Serbian knights. Each member should observe seven cardinal virtues, which are as follows: love between a parent and a child, respect for holy things, decency, friendship, loyalty, purity and patriotism.

Both Pješčić and Janjić confirmed for UNS that they had known each other for long time. Pješčić denies that he threatened Janjić and Beta, while Janjić claims that he had been listening to objections regarding Beta editorial policy for quite some time, but that the reported SMS was not an objection but a threat that he had to share with the staff.

“I know who sent the message. Beta reported it, because it is about a threat to Beta, and the message arrived to my phone. I know the guy for quite a long and I don’t know what happened to him”, Janjić said to UNS and confirmed that Absolut OK, company previously owned by Pješčić, had been the internet provider for Beta until it was sold to SBB.

Pješčić said to UNS that he had known Beta editor for 25 years; that the information system of Beta had been developed by Absolut OK, that he knew well Janjić’s son as well and that he had worked at his company Absolut OK, where he had continued to work also upon the change of owner. Pješčić denies the claims that it is a threat but that the SMS he sent to Janjić happened due to Janjić’s tweet he disagreed with.

“He tweeted that it was, kind of a time to end that charade and story about the intrusion into the RTS; that it was all a mere stupidity and that nothing actually happened. And then I wrote what kind of Dragan’s reaction would be if only one man had come and started to shout in Beta, only one. I wrote him a message: “Dragan, if some stupidity happens in Belgrade and Beta burns down, would that be OK as well”. After that I called him and talked to him for about 15 minutes and I said: “Come on, Dragan, don’t be like that; you cannot be such a fascist to your colleagues. Whether you agree with them or not- it’s a different matter, they are still some kind of your colleagues. But, to support the crowds of any kind, of any political affiliation is distasteful to me.”

KFOR intelligence service has refused to hand over documents about the investigation of the murder of journalist Enver Maloku to UNMIK.

The murder of Momir Stokic has been reported to UNMIK Police. There has never been an investigation and the complaint "disappeared" from their archives.

No investigation into the murder of Afrim Maliqi, a journalist of the newspaper "Bujku", either.

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) has added Professor Shaban Hoti, who was a part of the Russian state television journalist team, to the list of murdered and kidnapped journalists. He was killed in Lapusnik, in July 1998.

These are only some of the UNS’s findings presented to the public in the past year on the investigations of the murders and kidnappings of 15 journalists in KiM, about which almost nothing was known.

Last year, the Assembly of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) adopted the Resolution on investigations into murders of journalists in Kosovo on the initiative of the UNS. The names of the 14 Serbian and Albanian colleagues, journalists and media workers murdered and kidnapped in Kosovo and Metohija from 1998 to 2005 have been published on the Council of Europe's Platform for the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists. 

The Government of the Republic of Serbia passed a decision extending the remit of the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists to the cases of murders and disappearances of journalists in KiM in the period 1998 - 2001. This decision was passed just after the publication of the results of the UNS’s investigation. The UNS’s texts in Albanian, Serbian and English were published by the media in Pristina, Belgrade and EU countries. In 2018, this investigation encouraged other colleagues to make contributions and features on this topic, especially in Pristina. 

Staggeringly huge success 

Jan Braathu, Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, says that the UNS’s investigation has been a major step forward in bridging the division between journalists belonging to the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo.

- Dear Mrs. Petkovic, on behalf of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, I would like to express our admiration to and recognition of your professionalism, dedication and determination exhibited over the past few years while reporting on the cases of the murdered and missing journalists in Kosovo between 1998 and 2005. The Mission in Kosovo is committed to improving the safety of journalists and addressing the past violence in order to end impunity and ensure that journalists can work freely and unhindered, in accordance with the principles of the OSCE. You have been investigating in very difficult political and social environment. Moreover, you have largely been alone. Indeed, you have been a pioneer in this regard. Others are now talking about it and following the path that you have forged. Your work is focused on the victims, regardless of ethnicity or politics. In that you have exhibited true professionalism and commitment to high principles regarding the safety of journalists. It's astonishing how you have managed to gain the trust of families of victims, again, regardless of ethnicity. In this you have exhibited humanity, in addition to professionalism. This is a really rare combination. In addition, allow me to express my appreciation for the UNS’s support and commitment in this regard. The UNS has advocated for the rights of journalists and security in a fundamental way. If I'm not mistaken, the UNS has been the first to ensure that the texts on this subject - mainly yours - are translated and published in Serbian, Albanian and English. It has brought the issue of the murdered and missing journalists in Kosovo closer to the international public, and, more importantly, it has made a major step forward in bridging the division between journalists from the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo. This has resulted in a joint resolution, presented and adopted by the European Federation of Journalists. Finally, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo will certainly continue to support your efforts and the efforts of others to resolve the cases of murdered and missing journalists in Kosovo from 1998 to 2005. This is a principled issue, but also the issue of humanity and respect for the families of the murdered and missing journalists - said Jan Braathu, the OSCE Ambassador to Kosovo, about the UNS’s research.  

What did we discover and publish in 2018? 

There was an investigation into the kidnapping of Ljubomir Knezevic, but it was suspended

While investigating the kidnapping of Ljubomir Knezevic, a journalist from Pristina's "Jedinstvo" and a correspondent of Belgrade's "Politika", the UNS discovered that back in 2001, the attorney Stoja Djuricic suspected that he had been kidnapped by a group under the command of Gani Ymeri, the KLA commander in the Vushtrri region. As the representative of the aggrieved parties, she asked for the extension of the then current investigation into the kidnapping of six men and the attempted murder of a Serb civilian before the District Court in Mitrovica against Ymeri. Quite soon after that, the investigation against Ymeri began to crumble due to open murder threats to a protected witness. When the international investigative judge Leonard Assira allowed the investigator to testify instead of the witnesses at the hearing due to these threats, the defense requested his exemption as well as the exemption of the international prosecutor Matti Heinonen. After the threats, the replacement of the prosecutor and the judge, the investigation reached a dead end, and the suspect was released from detention five months later.

Murder of Professor Shaban Hoti

Russian language professor, translator and media worker, Shaban Hoti was captured and murdered, as a part of the Russian state television team that tried to interview KLA members in Lapusnik village, in July 1998. He is the 15^th on the list of murdered and kidnapped journalists and media workers in Kosovo. 

Members of the KLA first stopped the vehicle with the Russian state television group on the Pristina-Peja road and then captured them. On 21 July 1998, around 19:30, Russian journalists were released, but not Hoti. Five days later, he was shot at Berisha Mountain. 

Hajrednin Balaj, nicknamed ‘’Shala’’, a guard in the KLA concentration camp Lapusnik, has been convicted before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to 13 years of imprisonment for the murder of Shaban Hoti and eight more civilians.

EULEX knows who is responsible for the murder of Xhemail Mustafa? 

UNS learned that EULEX staff members who had investigated the murder of journalist Xhemail Mustafa believe Nazim Bllaca, an assassin that now enjoys the status of a protected EULEX witness, to be responsible for this crime. Mustafa was killed by two unidentified assailants in front of his apartment in Pristina on 23 November 2000. The UNS’s source, a very credible one based on his/her function in Kosovo, said that EULEX has a lot of information about that murder.

- Bllaca was an assassin who was behind every big, well-paid murder, whether it was ordered by the leading members of the parties formed by the KLA factions, led by Hashim Thaci and Ramush Haradinaj, or senior Kosovo politicians such as Azem Syla, Gani Geci and Fatmir Limaj. Bllaca committed the most egregious and heinous murders that took place in Kosovo from 1998 to 2005 - the source told the UNS.

Nazim Bllaca’s attorney Burhan Qosha told us to address EULEX for permission to interview Bllaca.  EULEX has not approved the interview. 

Enver Maloku – intelligence interests involved in the investigation

UNS learned that KFOR intelligence service had refused to hand over the documents about the murder of journalist Enver Maloku to UNMIK Central Intelligence Unit and Investigation Unit.

UNMIK investigators received scarce information, and KFOR intelligence service "justified" their actions by explaining that all important data on the murder had already been handed over to the NATO Military Archive. UNMIK addressed the NATO Military Archive; however, it has never received any answers.

At the NATO Headquarters, the UNS requested the data from the Military Archive about all murdered and kidnapped journalists in Kosovo, and particularly insisted on the documents about Maloku’s murder.

- We do not have independent information that confirms these incidents. KFOR was deployed to Kosovo in June 1999 - was NATO’s official reply to the UNS, with the notation that "the archive is being moved at the moment". 

- The background of the killing of journalists in Kosovo is clear - they were a hindrance in million ways. It was a way to discipline the Albanians, as well. First of all, Enver Maloku –Rade Maroevic, who was the editor of the Beta News Agency from Pristina during and after the war, told the UNS. He pointed out that "if the Albanian SHIK (intelligence agency of the KLA during the war) opened their archives, some data might be available."

The UNS also learned that the former head of the KLA command, and then PDK senior official, Azem Syla, threatened to "cut off the head" of the renowned Albanian journalist Mero Baze.

When Baze mentioned the murdered journalist Enver Maloku, Syla implicitly made him aware that "they" did it. In the interview for the UNS, recalling the event, which took place during the Rambouillet negotiations, Baze underlined that, in the context of events, it had not been a murder confession, but an intimidation attempt. 

Murder of journalist Momir Stokuca in Pristina - 19 years without investigation

UNMIK Police received a call that something was happening in Djura Jaksic Street 15 in Pristina, on 21 September 1999. They found the killed Momir Stokuca, a photo reporter and a collaborator of "Politika", on the bedroom floor of the house at that address.

- There were a foreigner and a girl, an interpreter, in the UNMIK Office. He took the bullet out of a drawer and showed it to me. This is the bullet that killed him, he told me. I asked if it was a bullet from my father's gun? He said no. We found that gun in your house. He was shot from another one - Branka Damnjanovic, Momir Stokuca’s sister, described the meeting with an UNMIK investigator when she went to claim Momir's body.

There has never been an investigation, and the data on this case have "disappeared" from the UNMIK Archive, which has been justified to the UNS by "the change in the remit and moving". Neither EULEX, nor the Special Prosecution Office of Kosovo, or the Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor hold any data on this murder. 

No investigation into the murder of journalist Afrim Maliqi

Early in 2017, the OSCE Mission in Vienna added the name of Afrim Maliqi, a journalist of the newspaper "Bujku", to the list of murdered journalists. He was murdered in Pristina, on 2 December 1998, and the investigation is not being conducted. According to the Kosovo Memory Book of the Belgrade Humanitarian Law Center, Maliqi was killed as a member of the armed formations. According to the KLA records, Maliqi was a member of the 152 Brigade. However, other information indicates that he was killed as a civilian.

- It was indeed very hard to determine whether a person was killed as a journalist, civilian or a member of the armed forces. For us, the most important thing is that he was a media professional, while it is on the local authorities to bring to justice all responsible persons and transparently investigate the circumstances surrounding these murders – the OSCE Mission in Vienna responded to the UNS. 

 Marjan Melonasi: a crime to which the police turned a blind eye

Marjan Melonasi disappeared on 9 September 2000. His mother, Cica Jankovic and his grandfather, Krista Melonasi, who had been the Principal of the School of Internal Affairs in Vucitrn for 13 years, have done everything to find him. 

- All those generations of police officers, who later became members of the KLA and other Albanian structures, had studied in grandfather's school. He went to Hashim Thaci, and he also went to Ramush Haradinaj, but they did not say anything to him. Considering where he had worked, I was firmly convinced that grandfather would be able to find out what happened to my son, no matter what the truth was – Cica Jankovic told the UNS. 

She has said that Marjan’s colleagues at the then newly established Radio Television Kosovo have never called her.

- It is a conspiracy of silence – she underlined. 

- I know that Marjan was being threatened for socializing with Serbs. This is what he told me; however, there may have been other things – Olivera Bernardoni Stojanovic, a friend of Marjan Melonasi, recounts for the UNS. 

- Until the disappearance of Marjan Melonasi, we did not quite understand that the journalists were a target. After him, another friend of ours disappeared. When it comes to investigations, the favorite justification of UNMIK Police was "There are many things going on, you know, there are a lot of problems, you know, we do not have the information, you know, please help us." The point is that they just did not care at all - the journalist Nikola Radisic, who worked for UNMIK Press Service in 1999 and 2000, and works on TV N1 today, recounts for the UNS.

It is important to continue the investigations

Veran Matic, the president of the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists in Serbia, points out that "it is very important that the UNS continues its investigation because, besides yielding new data, it reminds us of what has not been and had to have been done, or what is not being and must be done ".

- By opening the topic of the missing, kidnapped and murdered journalists in Kosovo, the UNS and Jelena Petkovic, have systematically, by thorough case-by-case investigation, done more than any institution remitted to investigate - both the Serbian institutions and the organizations that have taken responsibility for the security of citizens - KFOR, UNMIK, and EULEX.

They did not even have a list of the murdered and the kidnapped. In many cases there was no investigation, and some investigations were only formally launched and closed without results. Impunity for murdering and kidnapping journalists only leads to the extremization of the journalists’ position. These investigations were launched by institutions. We now have lists of the missing and killed journalists, the collection of data on previous institutional investigations and the formation of cases files both in Serbia and in provisional institutions in Kosovo. Still, the intensity of work on these cases is not satisfactory. The investigations conducted by the UNS and Jelena Petkovic continue to be more dynamic and comprehensive.

They will serve anyone conducting investigative actions. They will make up, at least partially, for all omissions made by institutions in Kosovo. 

Societies in Serbia and Kosovo, journalists and the media must face the harsh facts that the majority of journalists and media workers were murdered and kidnapped within only a few years, and that none of the cases have been resolved. Efforts must be made to prioritize the resolution of these cases. Bridges between the institutions in Kosovo and institutions in Serbia must be established. The data collected by both sides must be consolidated in one place with a clear plan to conduct investigations on both sides in order to maximize the performance. 

It is very important that the UNS continues its investigation, in spite of everything, because apart from yielding new information, it reminds us of what has not been and had to have been done, or what is not being and must be done - concludes Matic. 

Insisting on investigation

In 2018, in addition to interviews with relatives, friends, colleagues and collaborators, the UNS also published interviews with the heads of institutions, with whom it checked the status of investigations.

Drita Hajdari, Prosecutor for the Special Prosecution Office of Kosovo, in an interview for the UNS, wondered how local prosecutors could make up for what the international prosecutors failed to do. 

UNMIK and EULEX missions with a large number of prosecutors failed to solve murders and abductions of journalists, and now local prosecutors are expected to make up for what the international ones failed to do - she said for the UNS.

In addition, she could not provide more details about the investigations related to the kidnapping of journalist Ljubomir Knezevic and the murder of Enver Maloku because, as she said – they were underway.

As for documents related to the investigation of kidnappings of Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic, the Prosecutor’s Office has not received them from EULEX yet. Hajdari says that, for now, the Prosecutor’s Office does not have any information whatsoever about the murders of Afrim Maliqi, Krist Gegaj, Momir Stokuca, Shefki Popova and Bardhyl Ajeti

It would be good to expand the investigation 

- It is regrettable that so far journalists had not investigated the murdered journalists, but also the others, especially civilians, because the public would have been much better informed about past events. Young generations, both here and in Serbia, and in the region, grow up with a narrative about the past, about the nineties that is not quite true. We have created unilateral narratives that are more based on myths than on facts. It is not only important because the European Federation of Journalists adopted the Resolution, and because the data are available internationally, but it is also very important because of our citizens. Institutions have not addressed this issue to a great extent, and if there are any investigations, information about them never reaches the public. Our citizens remain deprived of the truth. It is absolutely important that you began to investigate kidnappings and murders of journalists and it would be very good to extend your investigation to other civilians, as well. In addition, we will have a very reliable source of information about these events, said one of the interlocutors of the UNS Dossier series, Bekim Blakaj, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Pristina.