Blagoje Spasojevic has called his participation in the events of September 24, 2023, “the biggest mistake of my life”.
That day, dozens of armed Serbs, including Spasojevic, ambushed a police patrol in northern Kosovo with what prosecutors say was the aim of kicking off a conflict that would carve off Serb-populated towns and villages and unite them with Serbia.
Kosovo Albanian police officer Afrim Bunjaku, 50, was killed and another officer, Clirim Shaqiri, was wounded.
Spasojevic, 33, and Vladimir Tolic, 40, were arrested in military fatigues at the scene; a third man, 29-year-old Dusan Maksimovic, was apprehended the next day. Forty-one others somehow got away. One of them, Stefan Radulovic, was arrested last week.
On Friday, Spasojevic, Tolic and Maksimovic will learn their fate.
All three have pleaded not-guilty to charges of terrorism and serious acts against the constitutional order and security of Kosovo, but Spasojevic nevertheless expressed regret for his role in the attack in the village of Banjska.
“I am sorry for the death of the policeman Afrim Bunjaku and for the other injured parties; I am sorry that I participated in that event,” he told Pristina Basic Court on Monday during closing statements. “I cannot say that I am a terrorist, because I have not killed or injured anyone. I did not fire a single bullet at members of the police or anyone else.”
The case is far bigger than the fate of three alleged gunmen, however. It could potentially end with a Kosovo court branding Serbia a sponsor of terrorism.
In the indictment, prosecutors say the attackers underwent training at the Pasuljanske Livade military training ground in central Serbia, a little over 100 kilometres north of the Kosovo border, just days earlier, citing drone footage seized in Banjska. Serbia, it states, placed at the group’s disposal “all necessary” military infrastructure and logistics equipment “to commit the terrorist attack of September 24, 2023, in Banjska”.
Blagoje Spasojevic, Vladimir Tolic and Dusan Maksimovic at Pristina Basic Court in October 2024. Photo: BIRN.
In total, 44 individuals and one legal entity are named in the indictment. Forty-three of them, including Spasojevic, Tolic and Maksimovic, are charged with terrorism and serious acts against the constitutional order and security of Kosovo. The legal entity, RAD d.o.o., and its owner, Radule Stevic, are charged with money-laundering, as is one of the other 43 – the alleged ringleader, local Serb powerbroker, businessman and politician Milan Radoicic.
Two of the gunmen were confirmed killed, but reports say others were injured and treated in Serbia, their fate unknown.
Only Spasojevic, Tolic and Maksimovic are on trial, while the case against the others has been separated until such time as authorities can get their hands on them. Kosovo has issued international warrants for their arrest.
After the attack, Kosovo police seized anti-personnel mines, Zolja anti-tank rockets, 60mm mortar rounds and an M93 automatic grenade launcher.
“I couldn’t have imagined such a tragedy would occur,” he told the court. “I did not want to be part of any violence.”
Maksimovic said he wasn’t involved at all, despite what prosecutors say are videos, photographs and phone conversations that place him at the scene, armed. All three face possible life imprisonment.
Radoicic is in Serbia, as, almost certainly, are the rest of his co-accused. He quickly took responsibility for the armed attack, but Serbia shows no sign of handing him over or putting him on trial itself.
Indeed, for years Radoicic had been a close political and business ally of Serbia’s government, deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista party that works hand-in-glove with Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party in safeguarding Serbian interests in the north of Kosovo – a former Serbian province that broke away in war in 1998-99 and declared independence in 2008.
Radoicic stood down from the party in the wake of the Banjska attack and was questioned by Serbian prosecutors the following month on suspicion of creating an armed group, amassing weapons and “serious crimes against general security”. He was never charged in Serbia.
Radoicic claimed Serbia had no knowledge of his plans, but Kosovo says he would never have been able to amass such a cache of weapons and launch such an audacious attack without, at the very least, the tacit approval of Serbia.
