Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Serbia
Newsline: Suspects accused of setting fire to US Embassy in Serbia arrested
Serbia’s police say they are carrying out raids aimed at arresting at least 14 people accused of setting fire to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade in 2008 during riots against Kosovo’s independence. Serbia’s public prosecutor, Zagorka Dolovac, said police began carrying out the raids Tuesday in several Serbian towns and cities, including Belgrade, the capital. Hundreds of nationalist rioters stormed the embassy on Feb. 21, 2008, to vent their anger over Washington’s support for the statehood of the predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo, which had declared independence from Serbia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/police-arresting-suspects-accused-of-setting-fire-to-us-embassy-in-serbia/2012/04/10/gIQAHdvU8S_story.html
Newsline: French envoy’s wife accused of possession of cocaine
Wife of French Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Serbian playwright Biljana Srbljanovic is being accused with possession of cocaine. The Belgrade Court is still unable to issue official indictment because Srbljanovic gave wrong addresses to police and the court. Spokesperson for the Belgrade Court Dusitsa Ristic said that because an indictment has not been submitted the court can not start the process. Srbljanovic didn’t show her address because she doesn’t want to overshadow career of her husband Gabriel Keller, the former French Ambassador to Serbia and the current French Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Srbljanovic was detained on December 1, 2011 when buying cocaine from street dealers. According to police, she bought cocaine twice paying 60 euros. The French embassy in Azerbaijan didn’t make comment on the Serbian press reports. Srbljanovic is a famous playwright. Her five plays have been translated into 20 languages and put on stage by more than 50 theaters in Europe and America. Srbljanovic was a member of the Political Council of the Liberal Democratic Party and in 2008 and one of the candidates for Mayor of Belgrade.
http://www.en.sia.az/index.php?action=static_detail&static_id=208362
Newsline: Serbia gets SFRY embassies in Peru, Uganda, Egypt
During the latest distribution of diplomatic and consular premises in South America and Africa that belonged to the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Serbia obtained those in Peru, Uganda, Venezuela, Egypt, Uganda, Congo and Zambia. During the latest distribution of diplomatic and consular premises in South America and Africa that belonged to the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Serbia obtained those in Peru, Uganda, Venezuela, Egypt, Uganda, Congo and Zambia. Representatives of five SFRY successor states agreed at a meeting of the joint committee on allocation of SFRY diplomatic assets, that was held in Zagreb, the way in which they will divide 23 buildings in the regions of South America, North and South Africa and the Sahara, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said. Six buildings located in Latin America and the Caribbean region were divided. Serbia obtained the embassy and residence in Peru’s capital Lima, and the embassy in Caracas in Venezuela. Croatia got the SFRY general consulate in Santiago de Chile, and Slovenia the residence in Brasilia and general consulate in Sao Paolo in Brazil. In the area of North Africa, five buildings were allotted, so Serbia got the SFRY embassy, residence and consulate in Cairo in Egypt; Slovenia the embassy in Rabat in Morocco, and Croatia the embassy in Tunisia. Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina received an equal part of the SFRY embassy building in Algeria. In the region of South Africa and the Sahara, 12 buildings were distributed – Serbia got the former SFRY embassy in Kampala (Uganda), the embassy and residence in Kinshasa (DR Congo) and the embassy and residence in Lusaka (Zambia). Croatia was given the residence in Nairobi in Kenya, the embassy and residence in Khartoum (Sudan) and the residence in Madagascar. Bosnia-Herzegovina obtained the embassy in Nairobi, and Slovenia in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the residence in Mali.
http://www.emg.rs/en/news/serbia/175937.html
Newsline: Arrests in Serbia after attack on U.S. Embassy in Bosnia
Police say 15 people suspected of belonging to an extremist Islamic sect have been detained in southern Serbia. The arrests in Sandzak early Saturday were made after a man from the Muslim-dominated region of Serbia fire with an automatic weapon outside the U.S. Embassy in neighbouring Bosnia Friday in what authorities called a terrorist attack. A policeman and the gunman were wounded. The embassy said none of its employees was hurt. The shooter was identified as Mevlid Jasarevic from Novi Pazar, the administrative capital of Sandzak. Serbian officials say he is the follower of the Wahhabis, a conservative Islamic sect that is rooted inSaudi Arabiaand linked to religious militants in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20111029/sandzak-serbia-arrests-in-bosnia-us-embassy-attack-111029.html
Newsline: Serb diplomat convicted in US beating case
A court has convicted a former Serbian diplomat of helping a Serb college basketball player flee the U.S. after beating a fellow American student into a coma. In its ruling Tuesday, the court sentenced former deputy consul in New York Igor Milosevic to 18 months in prison. He was found guilty of issuing emergency travel documents to Miladin Kovacevic who fled the United States after severely beating Brian Steinhauer in May 2008. Kovacevic is serving a two-year sentence imposed by a Belgrade court a year ago for the assault, which occurred in a bar in Binghamton, upstate New York. The beating left Steinhauer with skull fractures and brain injury. Serbia cited a legal ban on extradition as the reason it could not hand over Kovacevic for a trial in the U.S.
http://m.billingsgazette.com/mobile/article_b2a56e8f-f1b1-52e4-bfbe-7c8c29156073.html
Newsline: Trial of African diplomat’s wife to go on in Romania
Romanian prosecutors say a Congolese diplomat’s wife charged with cigarette smuggling will face trial in September. In June, Romanian authorities found 1,800 cartons of smuggled cigarettes in the car of the wife of an official at the Congolese embassy inSerbia, who claimed diplomatic immunity. Romanian authorities dismissed the argument. Organized crime prosecutors charged the embassy’s second counselor Marc Marius Itela Elombola in absentia after his wife Esther Pascaline was caught with cigarettes from Montenegro in her car. She is under arrest in the western city ofTimisoarapending trial, together with her driver and two other Serb citizens. They risk prison sentences of up to seven years.
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1674407
Newsline:Croatia to get seven ex-Yugoslavia’s diplomatic properties by end of year
Croatia will receive seven properties including embassies inVienna and Lisbon under the succession agreement that divides former Yugoslavia’s consular and diplomatic properties amongst former states. The Joint Committee for the Succession of Diplomatic and Consular Property of the former Yugoslavia met in May to decide the schedule for handing over the properties currently owned in major parts by Serbia. The meeting was a resurrection of talks that had been stalled for some time. According to the plan, Croatiais supposed to receive seven properties by the end of the year (two apartments in Trieste, Italy, the embassy in Vienna, the embassy inLisbonand residencies in Madrid, Spain, in Oslo, Norway and in Helsinki, Finland). The remaining three properties (the embassy in Den Haague, the general consul’s offices in Toronto, Canada and the residency in Stockholm, Sweden) will be handed over by 31 August 2011.
Newsline: Wife of Congo diplomat arrested in Romania
Police have arrested the wife of an African diplomat and charged her with involvement in a Serbian smuggling ring after she was caught with 1,800 cartons of cigarettes in her car.Timisoaracounty court in western Romania ordered that Esther Pascaline be held for 29 days pending trial, following Monday’s discovery. Her Serbian driver, Miljan Vujosevic, and two other Serbs citizens were also arrested and charged. The four can appeal. Pascaline’s husband, the second counselor at the Congolese embassy inBelgrade, is also suspected of involvement in the ring which smuggled tax-free cigarettes from Montenegro to Romania. No charges have been brought against him. The four risk prison sentences of up to 10 years for smuggling.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015313576_apeuromaniacigarettesmuggling.html
Newsline: Grenade at Croatian embassy a ‘warning’
A grenade found in a parcel sent to the Croat embassy in Berlin was sent as a warning to the Croatian and Serbian presidents who advocate good ties between the former foes, local dailies reported on Tuesday. “This little grenade is a warning to (Croatian president) Ivo Josipovic and (Serbian president) Boris Tadic” the influential Vecernji List daily said, quoting a threatening letter that allegedly accompanied the grenade. The letter contained a series of insults directed at the two leaders, who have made reconciliation with their Balkans neighbours a priority, the paper said quoting German sources close to the investigation. The parcel with the grenade was recovered on Monday just two days before Josipovic’s was due to arrive for a three-day visit in Germany. The country has a large Croatian diaspora community and has always had good ties with Zagreb and was among the first countries to recognise its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. An embassy spokesperson said on Monday that the letter, written in Croatian, had been handed over to German authorities and was received in a courier package sent from Germany. The authors of the letter, that had an insignia and was signed with initials HF, also vowed to “avenge” a Croatian policeman, whose killing 20 years ago by rebel Serbs, was an incident that heralded the 1991-1995 war. “Nothing can stop us” from getting revenge the letter said. Berlin police said they had no leads yet on possible suspects or motives for the incident.
http://m.news24.com/news24/World/News/Grenade-at-Croatian-embassy-a-warning-20110118
Newsline: Greek embassy attackers indicted
The Belgrade District Prosecutor’s Office raised an indictment against six persons for an attack on the Greek embassy in Belgrade. According to the indictment, on August 24, 2009, around 03:00 CET, the group first wrote graffiti on the embassy’s façade, and then threw two Molotov cocktails on the Greek embassy in Francuska St. in Belgrade. They were arrested soon after. The six declared themselves as of members and supporters of the Anarcho-Syndical Initiative.
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php?yyyy=2009&mm=12&dd=07&nav_id=63574
