No police charged over Priština riot

No members of the police will be charged following investigations into a violent protest on February tenth in Priština.

Izvor: BIRN

Wednesday, 04.07.2007.

12:12

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No police charged over Priština riot

Robert Dean, the international prosecutor in charge on the investigation, on Monday said there was insufficient evidence to charge specific officers with shooting at the protesters, BIRN reports from the province.

About 3,000 people took place in the protest.

Various unofficial reports had blamed members of the Romanian police for the deaths of two ethnic Albanian protesters, Mon Balaj and Arben Xheladini.

The allegations were backed by an interim report of April 16, drafted by the UN task group in charge for investigations, headed by Dean.

This report stated that “the evidence to date leads to the conclusion that deaths of Balaj and Xheladini were unnecessary and avoidable.”

“There is a reasonable suspicion that three of the shootings constitute crimes under Kosovo law,” Dean said on April 17.

But Dean’s final report, made public on Monday, said there were substantive differences between Romanian law, international law and UN guidelines on the use of rubber bullets.

According to Dean, misunderstandings between the Romanian police and their commanders led to confusion about what action to take against the demonstrators.

“There appears to be some divergence between Romanian domestic law and generally accepted international law and guiding UN principles on the use of deadly force and very possibly on the use of rubber bullets,” Dean told reporters on Monday.

Dean also said that the coordinator of the police was not even aware that the Romanian special forces had used rubber bullets to disperse the protest.

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