Three Kosovo Serbs Arrested Over Politician's Murder: Police

Mitrovica, Kosovo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Nov, 2018 ) :Three Serbs living in northern Kosovo were arrested Friday over the murder of prominent Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic who was shot dead in January, police told AFP.

The early morning arrests marked a rare intervention of Kosovo's special police forces into the northern half of Mitrovica, an ethnically divided city with Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south.

"Four people were arrested," Baki Kelani, a police spokesman in Pristina told AFP, adding that the fourth man was detained because he was trying to interfere.

Kelani said police were looking for a fourth suspect.

Ivanovic, a moderate Serb politician, was assassinated in front of his office in northern Mitrovica on 16 January 2018.

His killers have never been identified.

The 64-year-old was considered a rare politician capable of building bridges between Kosovo's Serb minority and ethnic Albanian majority.

The arrests come amid rising tensions between Pristina and Belgrade, which retains strong influence over Serb communities in Kosovo, even after it declared independence in 2008.

Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as an independent state.

Kosovo this week slapped Serbian imports with a 100 percent tariff in retaliation for Belgrade's efforts to undermine its statehood.

Following reports of the arrests on Friday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called a meeting with his defence and interior ministers and other security officials.