Suspects detained over attacks on Albanian businesses

Suspects detained over attacks on Albanian businesses

The Serbian police director visited Novi Sad on Sunday, where vandals stoned two bakeries and a fast food restaurant and threw a Molotov cocktail at another bakery all owned by ethnic Albanians on October 15 and 16.

The latest attack occurred on Sunday about two hours after midnight when three young men smashed the windows of the "Telep" cake shop owned by Arslan Rasiti, probably assuming that the owner is an Albanian judging by the surname.

However, the owner is a member of the Gorani minority group whose family lives and works in Novi Sad for the last six decades.

On Saturday night, a window was broken at a confectionery store owned by an ethnic Albanian in Bečej. Owing to the efficiency of the police, the case was solved on Sunday. The police have interrogated an 18-year-old man from this village on suspicion that he broke the window with a concrete ball.

On the occasion of the incidents in Vojvodina, Veljović conferred with colleagues in the Novi Sad Police Department and Mayor Miloš Vučević.

He told reporters after the talks that the priority of the police is to determine the identity of the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

He said that the arrests and interrogations of suspects will continue, adding that he expects these cases to be solved in the next few days.

Vučević has condemned in the harshest terms the attacks on property of Albanian fellow citizens, stressing that the authorities of Novi Sad and the state will not allow individuals or groups of vandals to damage the good reputation of the city and the whole country.

"You do not show love for your city and country by throwing a brick at the neighbor's window," said the mayor, and pointed out that it is very important that these attacks have come across condemnation by the public and entire community.

Aside from Novi Sad, attacks were carried out on two bakeries owned by ethnic Albanians in Stara Pazova - one was stoned and a bomb was thrown at the other one, while a bakery in Sombor was set on fire.

These attacks came in the wake a political provocation at the European championship qualifier match between Serbia and Albania in Belgrade on October 14, which was abandoned after a brawl that followed the appearance of a drone with a flag depicting the so called Greater Albania, a nationalist project that would include parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece.

This was followed by a series of provocations and attacks in the region - in which the target of Albanian nationalists and extremists were bars and shops in Kosovo and Metohija, southern part of central Serbia and even in Vienna.