Discoveries in Zubin Potok Raise Suspicions of Efforts to Conceal Evidence of War Crimes

Kosovo authorities announced on Sunday that they had identified another site in Zubin Potok where the remains of people who went missing during the war are suspected to have been buried.

According to a joint statement by the Kosovo Police and the Special Prosecution, the site is located in the village of Jabuka and was found during investigations into the case in Zubin Potok.

Acting Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla said that four bodies had so far been recovered from the site.

The new discovery has renewed attention on suspicions that Serbia’s years-long control over northern Kosovo may have been intended not only for political reasons but also to obstruct the discovery of evidence of war crimes. This is the assessment of Professor Gurakuç Kuçi, who criticizes Belgrade’s lack of cooperation in determining the fate of missing persons.

Kuçi stresses that whenever a suspected mass grave site is discovered in northern Kosovo, it raises further questions about whether maintaining Belgrade’s influence in this part of the country also served to conceal evidence of crimes committed during the war.

According to him, for more than two decades Serbia has invested in keeping the north under the influence of parallel structures and criminal groups led by Milan Radoiçiq, presenting this policy as the “protection of the Serbian people.” However, according to Kuçi, the identification of a second suspected mass grave site raises the issue to an even more serious level: the possibility that this control was used to prevent the crimes from being fully uncovered.

The professor also cites the failure to open military and police archives and the fact that Serbia is not assisting in the search for the missing. Instead, he says, figures and units linked to serious crimes during the war are being rehabilitated.

As an example, Kuçi mentions Ivica Daçiq’s inauguration of a monument dedicated to the 37th Motorized Brigade, which is linked to some of the most serious documented crimes against Albanian civilians in Kosovo. At that ceremony, he described the brigade’s soldiers as “war heroes” rather than criminals.

Kuçi says the positions taken by Serbian officials toward the discovery of mass graves, together with the glorification of units accused of war crimes, demonstrate a lack of willingness to confront the past. He adds that attacks on people who contribute to uncovering the fate of the missing make it more difficult to achieve justice.

He also draws attention to recent reactions from Serbian officials, saying that a few days after the discoveries, Daçiq attacked Serbs who tell Albanians and Croats where the graves of Albanians in Serbia are located. According to Kuçi, instead of being encouraged, such testimony is treated as treason.

Daçiq’s fellow party member and coalition partner Snezhana Paunović also said that if she had been in Slobodan Milošević’s position in 1998, she would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo. Kuçi stresses that Daçiq did not distance himself from this statement.

According to him, a state that honors units linked to war crimes, tolerates statements advocating ethnic cleansing, and attacks those who help locate mass graves is doing more than merely denying the past. He argues that this is a policy that continues to protect perpetrators, obstruct justice, and spread the belief that “anyone who commits crimes against Albanians will not be prosecuted but will be proclaimed a hero.”

Within a few days, two sites suspected of being mass graves have been identified in northern Kosovo. The first site is connected to excavations in Kalludër e Vogël in Zubin Potok, launched after the arrest of two people suspected of war crimes. It is believed that the remains of some of the 23 Albanians abducted in April 1999 may be found there.

The second site was discovered in Jabuka, also in the territory of Zubin Potok. This new case has reinforced suspicions that there may still be places in the north where war victims were concealed and which have yet to be discovered.