Posted on 11/23/2008 2:10:22 AM PST by kronos77
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Germany declined to comment on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers.
The explosive charge was thrown on November 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday.
The three were questioned on Saturday by a Pristina district court judge who ordered them to be detained until December 22.
A defense lawyer told reporters that the three were suspected of having committed an act of terrorism.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin confirmed that three Germans had been arrested, but declined to make any further comment as an investigation was under way.
A police source in Kosovo told Reuters: "They are members of the BND," but gave no further details.
The German weekly Der Spiegel also said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they had told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Ping!
GERMAN MEDIA:
Three German Spies Agents Arrested in Kosovo, Reports Say
The alleged spies said they were inspecting the blast site and were not involved in the explosion
Three Germans arrested in Kosovo on this week are allegedly spies working for a German intelligence agency, German media reported Saturday, Nov. 22. Lawmakers are demanding details of the arrests.
The three Germans were arrested Wednesday in Kosovo are agents for the Germany Federal Intelligence Agency (BND), Der Spiegel newsmagazine and the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Saturday.
The Germans were arrested by Kosovar police in connection with an attack on the European Union’s headquarters in Pristina on Nov. 14. No one was hurt in the explosion and indications of the attack’s background or possible motives remain unclear.
The suspects were in Kosovo “in a private capacity” and had no immunity from prosecution, police spokesman Veton Elshani told the German news agency dpa.
None of the German trio were “diplomats, police, soldiers or experts with international identification,” Kosovar investigators said on Friday.
The alleged spies said they were simply inspecting damage done by the bomb’s explosion and were not involved in the attack, according to the Spiegel report.
One of the men told Kosovar authorities he was working for the BND, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
Opposition wants details
Parliamentarians want to know exactly what the Germans were doing in Pristina
A German government spokesman declined to speculate about the possible involvement of Berlin’s security services (BND) in the case on Friday and instead pointed to the ongoing investigations.
German politicians in the opposition have called for the government to inform a parliamentary oversight committee.
“The status has to be made clear,” Max Stadler, the free-market liberal FDP’s expert for interior affairs, told dpa on Saturday, adding that lawmakers needed to be informed regardless of whether there was sufficient material to charge the Germans.
Governments usually register their intelligence agents with foreign authorities to ensure they are covered by diplomatic immunity. Berlin failed to accredit the three agents, leaving their legal status in Kosovo unclear, according to Der Spiegel.
An EU mission is due to take over the oversight of law-enforcement in Kosovo after more than eight years of a United Nations protectorate.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February. Pristina, Belgrade, the UN and EU are currently wrangling over the conditions for the deployment of the EU mission, the Eulex, comprising 2,000 police, judicial and customs officials.
Do you know more than this article states?
Those two articles are all we know.
background is following:
EULEX is unnauthorised EU mission in kosovo that Serbia have rejected and Albanians supported.
Bombing of EULEX headquorters would be seen as “Serbian terror act” and blame would fall on Serbia.
In past weeks prior to bombiong, Kosovo Albaniam authorities claimed that Serb enclaves are “nests of crime and police will crack them down”.
Bombing of EULEX HQ would be used as a “evidence” of Serbs plotting against “peace and stability” and gave “card blanche” to Albanians to kill or chase-out remaining Serbs.
So what would the Germans stand to gain? They do not exactly have much of a standing military to fight, so what is their motive?
These “spies” were just photographing an EU bureau. LOL.
Hey serbia, do what the EU tells you to do and shut up.
German involvment in entire Blakns crysiss is vas one of the most important.
Germany sided with Albanian Muslims anda Bosnian Muslims angainst Serbs all the way from 1990-es.
They recgognised Kosovo and were one of the firmest supporters of Clinton war against Serbia in 1999.
We tako no edvices from Russian bitches.
I mean, germans...
Or Germ-ans as you will....
Arrested German spies implicated in bombing of EU office in Kosovo: report
Berlin, Nov 22, IRNA
Germany-Kosovo-BND
Three Germans arrested in Kosovo Wednesday for their alleged role in the bombing attack of the European Union (EU) headquarters in Pristina were German BND secret service agents, according to the Hamburg-based Der Spiegel news magazine which did not cite sources for its report.
Kosovar anti-terror investigators accuse the BND spies of being involved in the November 14 bomb blast of the EU office in which no one was hurt.
The BND agents claim they had merely inspected the bombing site.
The BND bureau in Berlin has yet to respond to the report.
One of the accused German operatives was seen getting into a vacant building, located next to the EU office, from where the explosive device was thrown.
The agent had reportedly photographed the damaged EU bureau.
The arrest has soured ties between Germany and Kosovo as the BND operatives were not officially registered with the Kosovan government.
The German agent trio was not part of the formal representatives of Germany’s foreign secret service.
Berlin refused to comment Friday on the BND scandal in Kosovo, pointing to the ongoing investigation.
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman did say that if it was true that any of the three were BND employees, the matter would be referred to the parliamentary control committee in charge of monitoring the intelligence services.
Ah, I did not remember anybody in Europe outside of the Balkans being awake when this mess erupted.
Obviously, the conspiracy is deeper and darker than can rationally be imagined.
At what point in this thread will you be pulling your head out of you arse?
Ping!
Your thoughts on this please?
Yeah, make the the EU not UN. . .
Well, the US is a member of the UN and the US bombed Serbia which was against the UN charter. So basically, UN membership carries no weight.
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