Three UN judges ordered police on Friday to free three German agents who were arrested on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack at an EU building in Kosovo.
“There was not enough evidence to raise reasonable suspicion,” said Judge Vinod Boolell, who presided over the panel of international judges.
The order prompted prison officials to free the three German nationals on Friday evening. A photographer saw German Embassy cars collect two of them from the detention facility in Lipljan town southwest of Pristina. The third was released from a detention facility in the city.
The three — reportedly former soldiers working for Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service — were arrested last week and ordered held for 30 days for an investigation. The suspects had denied the charges against them, as did the German government.
Local prosecutors in Kosovo alleged that on Nov. 14 a German citizen threw 300g of dynamite at the EU offices in Pristina from a nearby building as the other two Germans looked on. The dynamite exploded, shattering windows but causing no injuries.
The prosecution said the attack was designed to “hamper and hinder” efforts to deploy the EU’s most ambitious police mission in Kosovo, but never explained what would have motivated German agents to do that.
This week the UN Security Council approved the deployment of an EU police and judicial mission throughout Kosovo under the UN flag.
Originally, the EU mission was to deploy after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, but it was stalled in part because of objections from Serbia.
The EU office houses the bloc’s officials who monitor Kosovo’s compliance with an international plan that paved the way for Kosovo to declare independence.
The UN Security Council did not endorse the plan, prompting Serbia to ignore the declaration.
But more than 50 countries have recognized Kosovo’s independence based on the plan, which is to accommodate the demands of Kosovo’s Serb minority, which is wary of the ethnic Albanian leadership.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS