Kurti: DNA Analysis of Zubin Potok Remains
Kurti said remains found near Zubin Potok have been sent for DNA analysis, again demanding Serbia open its archives and accusing Belgrade of arresting Serbs who testify in court.
Albin Kurti, acting prime minister of the Pristina institutions, said on August 24 that the search for missing persons near Zubin Potok has entered a new phase, the identification phase, after samples of remains found in the village of Jabuka were sent for DNA analysis. He also repeated his call for Serbia to open its state and military archives, accusing Belgrade of using classification to hide evidence of war crimes and of arresting Serbs who testify before international institutions.
“We have now entered a new phase, the identification phase, because samples of the remains found in the village of Jabuka have already been taken and sent for DNA analysis. For the rest, the process of preliminary examination continues at the Institute of Forensic Medicine,” Kurti said.
Timeline of the excavations near Zubin Potok
Work is underway in parallel at two sites in the Zubin Potok municipality, at Kaludra and at Jabuka. Kosovo’s Special Prosecution announced on August 2 that a new site suspected of containing human remains had been identified in the village of Jabuka. Two days later, on August 4, the government’s Commission on Missing Persons in Pristina said that during excavations in Mala Jabuka the remains of four people had been found and exhumed, and that initial estimates suggested they belonged to victims of forced disappearance during the war. The remains were then sent to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for further forensic examination.
Forensic experts and anthropologists from the Institute of Forensic Medicine, EULEX specialists, Kosovo police, judicial institutions and search and rescue associations are all taking part in the excavations. Touring the Mala Kaludra site on August 1, Kurti said the digging could take weeks, possibly months, since the remains are scattered and the terrain is difficult. In the three days before his visit, the site was also toured by Assembly Speaker Saranda Bogujevci, head of the government’s commission on missing persons Andin Hoti, Justice Minister Albulena Haxhiu, Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla and Minister of Local Government Elbert Krasniqi.
Demand to open the archives and accusation against Belgrade
Kurti repeated his demand for the archives to be opened today as well, using sharper language toward Serbia.
“Serbia is denying both the clarification of their fate and justice, because by concealing and refusing to acknowledge the crimes, as well as by refusing to open its archives and by classifying them, it aims to hide the truth and avoid responsibility. And not only that, Serbia is arresting and persecuting the few Serbs who have dared to testify before international institutions,” Kurti said.
Specifically, he is demanding the release of the records of the 37th Motorized Brigade, which Belgrade has classified until 2044. He also called on international institutions to step up pressure on Serbia to implement the declaration on missing persons agreed in Brussels on May 2, 2023, by opening its state archives. According to the Kosovo data Kurti cites, the fate of around 1,600 people who went missing during the war remains unresolved.
The group of 23 intellectuals from Mitrovica
Earlier, while visiting Mala Kaludra, Kurti had offered his own theory about whose remains might have been found.
“We have to wait for the DNA analysis, but in all likelihood these are the Albanians known as the group of 23 intellectuals, who were arrested, abducted and shot by hostile Serbian forces on April 19, 27 years ago,” he said at the time.
This is a reference to the group of intellectuals from Mitrovica whom Pristina says were arrested, abducted and shot on April 19, 1999. As Kurti himself acknowledges, that link still has to be confirmed by the DNA identification announced today, not by the theory floated in the field.
There has been no official reaction from Belgrade so far to today’s statement or to the demand to open the records of the 37th Motorized Brigade.
Portal Srpske Vesti has previously reported on the demolition of weekend houses at Gazivode and the pressure surrounding the north of Kosovo. Judging by the pace of announcements coming out of Pristina, the excavations near Zubin Potok are a new front in the same string of moves that Kosovo institutions have tied to their stance toward the Serb community and toward Belgrade.
