⚠️ WARNING: This article contains photographs that some readers may find disturbing.

“They handcuffed me and took me into the woods. They knocked me down… They tied me to a beech tree. That’s where they beat me.” Speaking from a hospital bed in North Mitrovica late Tuesday, Nenad Rašković, a resident of Dren in the Zubin Potok municipality, gave Radio Kontakt Plus a disturbing account of what he says happened following a police search of his home.

He alleges that Kosovo Police officers repeatedly came to his house looking for weapons, that one of three officers first assaulted him inside the home and that he was later handcuffed, taken into the woods, tied to a tree and beaten. He also speaks of fear for his family, claiming that his Albanian wife was threatened with being “sent back to Albania” as their children cried.

Kosovo Police told KoSSev that they had no information that their officers had beaten anyone, but said that, following the emergence of footage and public allegations, the case would be dealt with by the Kosovo Police Inspectorate (KPI).

Rašković spoke to Radio Kontakt Plus late Tuesday while receiving treatment in a hospital bed in North Mitrovica.

Speaking quietly but coherently, he tried to reconstruct chronologically what he says happened over the course of two days.

According to Rašković, police first came to search his home a day earlier.

“Yesterday they came to search the house. They asked for our ID cards. I gave them the cards and they told me: ‘Sign there.’ They searched the house.”

He says he does not know what he signed.

“I didn’t read what they had written.”

The officers then left, according to his account.

On Tuesday, he says, they returned.

“Where are the weapons?”

“As soon as they arrived, the jeep stopped in front of the house. ‘Where are the weapons? Where are your weapons?’ I said: ‘I don’t have any weapons.’”

Rašković alleges that violence then began inside his home.

“Then one of them grabbed me, took a piece of wood, pushed me into the house and punched me in the stomach and hit me on the head with the wood. Then he threw me out of the house.”

He says the officers continued asking for a rifle.

“They were looking for a rifle. I said: ‘There isn’t one. I don’t have one, I really don’t.’”

According to Rašković, the officers left but told him they would return.

“They said: ‘We’ll be back within five hours for the weapons.’ And I stayed at home.”

They did return, he says.

“‘Did you bring the rifle?’ I said: ‘I don’t have a rifle.’ They were there again… I don’t have a rifle. I don’t have a rifle.”

What Rašković says happened next constitutes the gravest part of his allegations.

“He cocked his pistol. They tied me to a beech tree”

“They handcuffed me and took me into the woods. They knocked me down. He cocked his pistol. He cut off a piece of half-inch water hose. He cocked his pistol. They tied me to a beech tree. That’s where they beat me. And they put a cloth in my mouth.”

Rašković says the officers then left before returning once more.

“They left. Then they came back again. They removed the cloth. They took off the handcuffs. They put me in the jeep…”

According to the remainder of his account, he was later left behind and made his way back home on foot. He says he became unwell afterwards.

He was subsequently taken for medical treatment, eventually arriving at the hospital in North Mitrovica.

“There were three of them. Only one beat me”

Asked how many police officers were present, Rašković replied:

“There were three.”

He added, however, that only one of them had beaten him.

Asked whether police had found anything during the search, Rašković again insisted that he had no weapons.

“I told them there was nothing, and there really wasn’t. I don’t have weapons. What weapons? I never had any.”

His account then turns to questions he says the officers asked him about the 1998–99 Kosovo war.

Rašković denied having committed a war crime against Albanians.

“I was in Serbia. I told them that, but they attacked me again.”

He says the officers also questioned him about a man named Momir Jakšić.

“They asked me about Momir Jakšić. I don’t know Momir Jakšić.”

The Serbian List alleged earlier that officers had demanded that Rašković admit to committing a war crime against Albanians during the war.

Fear for his wife and children

Towards the end of the interview, Rašković’s account shifts from what he says happened to him to what could happen to his family.

His wife is Albanian.

According to Rašković, officers threatened her by saying she would be “sent back to Albania”.

He says this took place in front of their children, who were crying.

Asked how he feels and how he intends to return to Dren after what he says happened, Rašković speaks about his livestock, his family and a life he cannot simply leave behind.

“They are threatening to come back again. I have nowhere else to go. I have a hundred sheep, two cows. I worked at Trepča. I receive the minimum payment.”

Serbian List calls for urgent investigation

The case first became public late Tuesday when the Serbian List issued a statement accusing Kosovo Police officers of severely abusing Rašković following the search of his family home in Dren.

According to the party, officers entered the house and searched it before physically assaulting Rašković.

The Serbian List alleged that he was subsequently taken to nearby woods, tied to a tree and beaten with a water hose, sustaining multiple injuries.

It also alleged that officers demanded that he admit to having committed a war crime against Albanians during the war.

According to the party, Rašković was eventually freed and taken first to the Health Centre in Zubin Potok and then to the hospital in North Mitrovica for further medical examination.

The Serbian List called for an “urgent, independent and comprehensive investigation” into the circumstances of the case and for those responsible to be identified.

It also called on KFOR and EULEX to investigate the allegations and take measures within their respective mandates.

The party additionally claimed that information had emerged about similar alleged incidents involving other residents who had not reported them out of fear. KoSSev has not independently verified that claim.

Kosovo Police: We have no information that officers beat anyone

Following the Serbian List statement and the emergence of images showing injuries on Rašković’s body, KoSSev contacted Veton Elshani, Deputy Commander of the Kosovo Police for the North region.

Elshani told KoSSev that police had no information that Kosovo Police officers had beaten anyone.

However, he did not say that the allegations had been investigated and dismissed.

Given the footage that had emerged and the allegations publicly made by the Serbian List, Elshani said the case would be dealt with by the Kosovo Police Inspectorate.

The KPI is the institution tasked with investigating suspected criminal offences committed by Kosovo Police employees.

This means that, as of late Tuesday, Kosovo Police had neither confirmed Rašković’s account nor established that the alleged assault had not taken place. The circumstances surrounding his injuries remained to be investigated.

Several days of police searches in Zubin Potok area

The case comes amid several days of police activity across the Zubin Potok municipality and the wider Ibar Kolašin area.

KoSSev has reported searches at several locations, including Crepulja, Prevlak and Jabuka, with further police activity continuing on Tuesday in Jabuka and Kaludra.

Police had previously said that at least some of these operations were being conducted as part of efforts to combat the illegal possession of weapons.

At the same time, separate activities connected with investigations into alleged war crimes and the search for missing persons have been taking place in the area.

Excavations have begun in Mala Kaludra in search of human remains.

At a location in Jabuka, human remains believed to belong to at least four individuals were discovered, with DNA analysis expected to establish their identities.

The Special Prosecution subsequently confirmed the presence of human remains at a third location, without publicly specifying where that site was located.

There have also been arrests in the Zubin Potok area in recent days on suspicion of war crimes, as well as a number of people taken in for questioning.

These are separate proceedings, and no official institution has publicly established a connection between all of these operations and the search of Rašković’s home.

Nor is there, at this stage, independent confirmation of what happened to Rašković between the police search and his arrival at hospital, or of how the injuries visible on his body were sustained.

What is known is that Tuesday ended with a man from Dren lying injured in a hospital bed in North Mitrovica, making grave and detailed allegations against police officers. Kosovo Police say they have no information that their officers beat anyone. What happened between the moment the officers arrived at Rašković’s home and the moment he arrived injured at hospital is now a question for the Kosovo Police Inspectorate to establish.

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