Who is competent to react if documentation is destroyed in Serbia’s institutions in Kosovo, and who can prevent possible removal of evidence of abuse?
The issue was raised after a group of students from the University of North Mitrovica, who support students protesting in Serbia, expressed doubts that official documents are being destroyed in some institutions of Serbia in Kosovo.
The Serbian judicial system has no competencies in Kosovo since 2017, when, under an agreement under the dialogue mediated by the European Union, it was integrated into the Kosovo system.
In recent days, information has circulated in Serbia that documentation is being destroyed in Serbia’s state institutions. For this reason, Serbia’s top public prosecutor, Zagorka Dollovac, on 29 October instructed all senior prosecutors to head urgently to the police with calls for taking measures to prevent the destruction of official documents and other files.
As noted in the report, public information concerns the destruction of documents in state institutions, banks, Security and Information Agency, the Military Intelligence Agency and other institutions of importance to Serbia’s economic, financial and legal security.
Radio Free Europe addressed the senior public prosecutor’s office in Serbia with the question of how to verify allegations of the destruction of documentation in Serbian institutions in Kosovo and those displaced in Serbian border towns after being closed by Kosovo authorities.
To the publication of this article, no answers have been given from this institution.
Currently, mainly educational and health institutions working according to the Serbian system operate in Kosovo.
What abuses are these?
A group of students from the University of North Mitrovica, which operates according to Serbia’s system, announced that it had received information that documentation is being destroyed at the Clinical Hospital Centre in North Mitrovica, as well as in the provisional municipal organs.
The Hospital Clinical Centre functions according to Serbia’s system, as do temporary municipal organs. However, Kosovo authorities have closed them over the past two years, along with other institutions being funded from Serbia’s budget, with the argument that they are parallel and illegal.
Some of the closed institutions in Kosovo, which later moved to Serbia, are the Post Savings Bank, the Post of Serbia, the Pension Security Fund and Invalidor, the Treasure of the People’s Bank of Serbia and the Centres for Social Work.
On October 28th, the group of students from the University of North Mitrovica voiced doubts that activities in the Serbian provisional municipal bodies are under way, allegedly aimed at the destruction and removal of official documentation, as well as the subsequent destruction of documents and possible abuses regarding the payment of medical salaries.
The Hospital Clinical Centre in northern Mitrovica denied these accusations, labeling them untrue and groundless.
Through a communique this centre said no one is destroying, removing or hiding official documentation, since, as noted in the announcement, there is no reason for such an act.
It was also estimated that such attacks could endanger the job and, as it was said, one of the most important institutions for members of the Serb community in Kosovo.
Radio Free Europe also addressed the Office for Kosovo in Serbia’s Government with a request to respond to accusations of destroying official documentation, but received no response.
Who can prevent the destruction of documentation in Kosovo?
Dusan Janjiq from the Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade, by law training, told Radio Europe free of charge that prosecutors in Kosovo have the mandate to react and verify allegations that official documents are being destroyed in Serbian institutions operating under Serbia’s system, as they function or function, as he says, with the tolerance of Kosovo authorities.
It’s also about payment circulation. I’m sure even Kosovo has powers. As far as money is concerned, they cannot be destroyed. Now I’m talking about the money. However, documents related to money passed from one hand to another could be destroyed, Yanjic estimates.
Janjak recalls that a lot of money has been earmarked from Serbia’s budget for Kosovo and that over a long period of time there have been doubts about their misuse.
I’m not surprised it’s destroying the documentation. This was expected because many things were done there contrary to the law. There’s work here for at least three kinds of prosecutors, says Janjiq.
According to Serbia’s Finance Ministry, for the Office for Kosovo in Serbia’s Government, 17.2 billion dinars were earmarked in 2025, or about 147m euros.
Another two billion dinars were envisioned through the National Employment Service for help to the unemployed from Kosovo. This money was mainly distributed through Kosovo’s provisional municipal organs.
What documents can be destroyed?
Dusan Janjic considers that the leaders of Serbian institutions in Kosovo could destroy, first of all, those documents that somehow connect them to former Serbian List Deputy Chairman Milan Radojic.
Radoic claimed responsibility for the attack on Banjska in September 2023, while Kosovo has issued a warrant for his arrest, as it is not accessible to justice organs.
He says this is why the Special Prosecutor in Kosovo must react, as this institution is conducting procedures in the Banjska case.
Serbia’s institutions are mainly led by representatives of the Serbian List, the largest party of Serbs in Kosovo, which has so far acted with the support of the Serbian Progressive Party and former Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq.
From this party on Friday, they said we accept the results of the parliamentary elections in Serbia, which they won the Student List, and that they remain committed to institutional ties with Belgrade.
REL failed to receive comment from the Students’ List until publishing this article concerning allegations that documentation is being destroyed in Kosovo institutions as well.
Representatives of this political movement, which was created by student anti-corruption protests in Serbia, urged employees in various institutions to report cases of document destruction during the transition period to the formation of new institutions.
Rodoub Sobnjak, lawyer and former Public Information Commissioner and the Protection of Personal Data in Serbia, stressed that in 2026 it is difficult to destroy official documentation preserved in electronic form.
However, he said that Serbia over the past ten years has been an untransparent country, or rather, according to him, there has been a nontransparent government, because of which it is not known how important official documents are stored or packed. /Radio Free Europe/