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.
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