Radević’s Arrest and the Excavations in Zubin Potok: Miftari Raises Suspicions and Criticizes Sami Lushtaku

Jugosllav Radević was arrested on Saturday evening during a joint operation by the Kosovo Police and the Special Prosecution Office.

The operation was conducted at several locations, while Radević is suspected of committing the criminal offense of “war crimes against the civilian population.”

Authorities announced that the investigation is continuing but provided no further details to avoid compromising the integrity of the proceedings. According to reports, Jugosllav Radević is also suspected of possible links to the Kalludra case, where investigations and excavations are underway amid suspicions that a mass grave containing people who disappeared during the war is located there.

The search for human remains in Kalludra, Zubin Potok, is continuing, and fieldwork is expected to last several weeks, and possibly even months.

Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti announced on Saturday that additional human remains had been found during excavations in the area.

During a visit to the site, Kurti said that while they were there, several more skulls had been discovered, as the search was still ongoing.

According to him, the remains are scattered along a stream, making their exhumation and identification more complicated.

Kurti said the stream may have displaced the bodies during the spring. For this reason, even if the victims were initially buried in a single location, their remains may no longer be at that site.

He explained that the victims’ identities can be established only through DNA analysis. The remains are suspected of belonging to a group of 23 Albanian intellectuals who were abducted and executed in April 1999.

The acting prime minister warned that the excavations could continue for many more weeks or months because the bones were found scattered along the stream. He emphasized that the stream is likely to be powerful during the spring and may have moved the bodies from where they had been buried. Speaking about judicial proceedings related to war crimes, Kurti also accused Serbia of arresting people who had provided information about those crimes.

Kurti expressed gratitude to the experts from the Institute of Forensic Medicine and EULEX who are working at the site. He also stressed that Kosovo’s institutions would support the process until the fate of those who disappeared during the war is clarified.

Meanwhile, former KLA officer Naim Miftari has provided further details about the arrested man, Radević.

In comments to “Bota Sot,” Miftari said that Radević had worked as a firefighter in Zubin Potok. He called for an investigation into who had been with the arrested man and which other individuals had taken part in the execution of the 23 Mitrovica intellectuals.

According to Miftari, Jugosllav Radević had been a paramilitary, a bridge guard and a member of the Civil Protection, while Hashim Thaçi and Ivica Dačić had admitted him into Kosovo’s security institutions. He said that Radević now works as a Serbian firefighter in Zubin Potok and called for him to be questioned about the people who had accompanied him and the others who took part in the execution of the 23 Mitrovica intellectuals.

Miftari also called for clarification of who the Albanian from Runik was and how contact had been established with a Serbian forester, a friend of the father, who was supposed to show them the way to Montenegro. According to him, the Serb had a Serbian police radio and had informed Serbian forces about the group and the direction in which it was moving.

He also raised questions about how Faruk Spahiu, the mayor of Mitrovica, had escaped together with several other members, perhaps three or four people. Miftari called for the identity of the Serbian commander who had helped them to be made public, as well as who had released them from the Serbian police station in Mitrovica the following day.

The former KLA officer also commented on a statement by Skenderaj Mayor Sami Lushtaku, who had visited the excavation site and called for further arrests of Serbs suspected of war crimes. Miftari responded by urging them not to “put on a show.”

He called on Kosovo government ministers and opposition representatives to insist that forensic experts, forensic medicine specialists and all departments responsible for identifying the victims continue their work without interruption.

Miftari called for the human remains in the north to be examined and for politicians not to organize, as he put it, parades and spectacles at the site where a mass grave containing Albanian civilian victims of the 1998–1999 war is suspected to be located. Instead of putting on shows and playing the role of patriots, he called for results as quickly as possible in this painful case.