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