Man Arrested at Horgos, Charged Over 1999 Klobukar Crime

Serbia’s Interior Ministry (MUP) said on August 2 that a man identified only as M.M. (1981) was arrested at the Horgos border crossing. He is charged with war crimes against the civilian population. Investigators suspect he committed the offense on July 26, 1999, in the village of Klobukar in Kosovo, against two people identified only by their initials, T.S. and S.S.

Three services carried out the arrest together:

• the War Crimes Investigation Service of the Criminal Police Directorate
• the Counter Terrorism Service
• the Border Police Directorate

The ministry summed up the grounds for suspicion in a single sentence.

The suspect is believed to have committed the offense on July 26, 1999, in the village of Klobukar in Kosovo, against T.S. and S.S.

The suspect has been ordered held for up to 48 hours, after which, along with a criminal complaint, he will be handed over to the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office. MUP did not release the man’s full name or nationality, only his initials and year of birth.

A different account of the same stop

Several hours before the MUP statement, lawyer Arijanit Koci said that Serbian border authorities at the crossing between Hungary and Serbia had detained a 44 year old man from the village of Jasenovik in the Novo Brdo municipality. Koci gave the man’s full name. This article does not repeat it, since there is no final verdict and the suspect is presumed innocent under the law.

According to the lawyer, the man was stopped around 10:30 p.m. while traveling by bus from Stuttgart toward Kosovo, together with his brother. Koci cited a damaged ID card as the reason for the detention, based on an account given to him by the detained man’s brother. That statement made no mention of any war crime.

The lawyer said he learned of the case after midnight.

“As soon as I received the information, I began working to clarify the circumstances of the detention and to provide the necessary legal assistance. I will continue taking every action within my authority and ability to help resolve this case as quickly as possible,” Koci said.

There are enough overlapping details to raise the question: the same border crossing, the same time frame, an age that roughly matches the year of birth given in the police statement. There is no official confirmation. Neither MUP nor the lawyer has said it is the same person, and authorities in Pristina have not commented on the case.

What does a 27 year gap mean?

Twenty seven years and a week passed between the date the suspect is charged over and his arrest. Going by the year of birth MUP released, the suspect was at most eighteen years old in July 1999. Prosecution for war crimes carries no statute of limitations, so the passage of time does not change the case’s legal standing.

Precedent from recent years shows an arrest does not always lead to an indictment. Mithat Lozani was arrested in February on suspicion of a war crime and released from custody at the end of April. The European Union said afterward that the way the arrest was handled did not comply with Serbia’s obligations under the 2015 Justice Agreement.

War era cases open on both sides

The arrest at Horgos comes in a week when war crime cases are moving forward both north and south of the Ibar. Kosovo police said the same morning that a man identified as J.R. was arrested in Zubin Potok, also on suspicion of a war crime against the civilian population. It is the third arrest in that town in a matter of days, and two men detained earlier, M.J. and M.B., have been ordered held for one month.

In Mala Kaludra near Zubin Potok, exhumations are underway in search of the remains of people who went missing during the war. This week the Basic Court in Pristina opened a trial over the events in Racak. Three days ago, R.T., a Kosovo Serb who had publicly presented himself as a witness to the crime in Mala Kaludra, was arrested in Kraljevo.

The next step in the Horgos case rests with the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office, where the police criminal complaint is now headed. Until prosecutors make their first decision, the question of identity also remains open, namely whether the man the lawyer named is the same person MUP is tracking under the initials M.M.