KOSOVO: VIOLENT DEATH OF ELDERLY SERB RAISES FEAR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000534

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE
NSC FOR BRAUN
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KCRM PREF PREL PGOV PINR SCUL UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: VIOLENT DEATH OF ELDERLY SERB RAISES FEAR
LEVEL AMONG SERB RETURNEES

REF: PRISTINA 518

PRISTINA 00000534 001.2 OF 002


SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PROTECT ACCORDINGLY


1. (SBU) SUMMARY. An elderly Kosovo Serb returnee was found
dead on June 20 from a gunshot wound to the head in western
Kosovo's Klina municipality. Police tell us informally that
the path of the bullet (entry through the front of the neck
and exit through the top of the head) would ordinarily
suggest suicide but no weapon was found at the scene.
Accordingly, they are investigating the death as a potential
murder. The Klina death comes on the heels of a series of
events that had already raised fears in the Kosovo Serb
community, especially among returnees. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) According to a police report, Kosovo Serb Borislav
Ribac came to the Klina police station in western Kosovo
around 9:45 a.m. on June 20 to report that he had found his
neighbor, 68-year old Dragan Popovic, dead in the latter's
home at about 9:00 a.m. that same day. UNMIK's Deputy Police
Commissioner for Operations Wayne Hissong later told INLRep
that Popovic had died from a gunshot wound to the head, with
a bullet entering the victim through the front of the neck
and exiting through the top of the head. Hissong said this
bullet path is consistent with suicide but added that other
circumstances were more consistent with homicide -- no gun
was found on the scene, the house door was open with keys in
the door, the telephone was off the hook, and a full bag of
groceries was found in the house. He said one cartridge case
was found at the scene. Hissong said he and Police
Commissioner Kai Vittrup were at the scene until late on June
20 as the forensic investigation continued, adding that the
investigation would include the administration of paraffin
hand tests (checking for recent use of firearms) to neighbors
and any others who had had contact with the scene.


3. (SBU) USOP calls to police and Klina contacts reveal that
Popovic left his native Klina at the 1999 end of the Kosovo
conflict, possibly because his rather hard-line Serbian
nationalist views brought him increasingly to the attention
of local ethnic Albanian leaders of the Kosovo Liberation
Army. He nevertheless got along reasonably well with
Albanians when he returned to Klina in 2005 with assistance
from the USG-funded International Catholic Migration
Commission (ICMC). The owner of some prime agricultural land
on the edge of Klina town, some of which he had reportedly
sold to Kosovo Albanians, he was relatively well-off. He
lived alone.


4. (SBU) The Popovic death follows a series of events and
pronouncements that had already heightened security concerns
in the Kosovo Serb community. Kosovo Police Service (KPS)
officials in Peja told RSO that explosives were discovered on
June 1 inside drainage pipes under a bridge between Stupejl
and Grabac, two Kosovo Serb returns sites in Klina
municipality. KPS reports that the incident was concluded
without injury or property damage. KFOR reportedly removed a
landmine from a Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Lipjan
municipality in central Kosovo on June 9, and 16 tombstones
were damaged in the same cemetery on June 20. Serbian
Orthodox Bishop Artemije issued a statement on June 19 that a
church in Obilic municipality had been vandalized with
crosses evidently stolen. Mayors of three Serb-majority
municipalities in northern Kosovo have issued statements
announcing the severing of ties with Kosovo's Provisional
Institutions of Self-Government in reaction to a perceived
worsening of security conditions (reftel).


5. (SBU) COMMENT. This latest violence comes as a blow to
Kosovo Serbs who have courageously begun in recent months to
return to western Kosovo, scene of the worst fighting of the
1998-99 war. Although all concerned are awaiting the results
of an autopsy, the preliminary police investigation indicates
that Dragan Popovic was murdered. There is as yet
insufficient evidence of motive available to USOP to conclude

PRISTINA 00000534 002.2 OF 002


whether this was a robbery-gone-bad, a conflict-related
assassination, or the settling of a personal grievance.
Investigations in Kosovo are often maddeningly inconclusive.
The immediate challenge for all parties to Kosovo events --
from returnees contemplating next steps to political leaders
-- is to keep from leaping to conclusions that are
unsubstantiated by available evidence. END COMMENT.


6. (U) Post clears this message in its entirety for release
to Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
GOLDBERG