Halimi wants Gendarmerie to withdraw

Halimi wants Gendarmerie to withdraw

He is asking Tadić to remove the Gendarmerie presence from the region and to have routine controls in the municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa handled by local police officials.

“In the last several days the control of traffic conducted by the Gendarmerie has spread out to the main streets of all of the larger towns in the Preševo municipality, and the citizens are being treated brutally. If we add to that the daily parading of the Gendarmerie in wartime equipment down the main streets of Preševo, the effect is the illegal implementation of a wartime atmosphere five years after the end of armed conflicts in our region.” Halimi said.

He said that it is very important for the Serbian Government to enable South Serbia businesspeople to participate in the commercial projects of Corridor 10 and the commercial zone of the border crossing near Preševo, adding that Albanians should be allowed to be employed within state and public sectors of the border crossing.

Albanians have accused members of the Gendarmerie of performing brutal searches of automobiles and passengers before asking for identification. FoNet’s sources close to the police state that these are routine traveler controls and that the Gendarmerie has the right to do this, especially if suspicion of criminal activity exists.

Commander: Gendarmerie did not use force

General Borivoje Tešić, commander of the MUP elite Gendarmerie unit, told FoNet agency that his officers did not use any form of force when they set up a control point near the village of Crnotinca in the Preševo municipality.

Tešić said the unit’s members were deployed in a search operation near the Ibro Raj motel on November 2, at around 11:30 pm. They acted on intelligence that several persons had crossed into Serbia proper from Kosovo illegally.

“After a detailed search the suspects were not located, while the Gendarmerie officers stopped and identified seven Albanians. During the course of their work they did not use force, and have carried out their duties in a professional manner, abiding by the rules and regulations”, Tešić pointed out in his reaction to Riza Halimi’s accusations.

”A year and a half ago I gave the Preševo and Bujanovac municipal presidents my business card with my phone numbers and asked them to call me if there were any problems. None of them has phoned me yet”, the Gendarmerie commander concluded.