KRIK: Zvonko Veselinovic and Milan Mihailovic suspected of involvement in the murder of Oliver Ivanovic

Translation provided by KoSSev

The investigation into the assassination of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic has been extended to include Zvonko Veselinovic and Milan Mihailovic, the Belgrade-based Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) reported on Friday. N1 received confirmation from the Kosovo Prosecutor’s Office about two more people covered by the probe but without their names, because this office said it did not want to obstruct the investigation.

The Kosovo Prosecutor’s Office extended the investigation into the two men on April 12^th, suspecting them of participating in organizing a criminal group, jeopardizing United Nations employees and its non-essential staff, causing danger and of the first-degree murder.

Oliver Ivanovic was gunned down outside his party’s office in North Mitrovica in January last year. Nedeljko Spasojevic, Dragisa Markovic and Marko Rosic were arrested in November, while Milan Radoicic, Veselinovic’s best man, was named as the fourth suspect.

The prosecution suspects that Spasojevic, a police investigator in the north of Kosovo, helped the perpetrator flee from the scene of the crime in an official police vehicle.

Rosic is under investigation because of a letter found in Ivanovic’s pocket containing the registration number of a jeep owned by Rosic’s family.

It is believed that Markovic, also a police officer from the north of Kosovo, passed information from the scene to a police officer in Serbia.

Spasojevic and Rosic have been in custody since their arrest, and the court was supposed to make a decision on the extension of their custody on Friday.

KoSSev: The information that the investigation has been extended to two more people, however, is not a novelty. This information was initially announced on November 23^rd of last year – the day of the arrest of three suspects for their involvement in Ivanovic’s assassination- during a second press conference on the occasion of the arrest which was held in the early evening hours in Pristina.

However, despite several announcements, no new suspects were arrested, nor were any indictments issued against anyone other than the arrested suspects.

The Kosovo Special Prosecutor in charge of Ivanovic’s case, Syle Hoxha, recently told the weekly magazine NIN that the investigation has been extended to „participants of the media campaign“ against Ivanovic. It is not known, however, how many people are involved in that part of the investigation, and whether the two persons mentioned are included in that investigation.

KRIK and BIRN wrote about the businessman from the north of Kosovo, Zvonko Veselinovic, earlier this week, however,regarding a different matter. These media outlets published photosin which Veselinovic is seen seated with the brother of the president of Serbia – Andrej Vucic, and claimed that the photographs confirm that they know each other – which was previously denied. In the same text, however, Veselinovic himself denied these allegations for KRIK, emphasizing that it was a „misinformation“.