Serbia Frees Second Detained Kosovar Albanian

BELGRADE - Serbian officials have released a Kosovar Albanian who was arrested last week on suspicion of committing war crimes during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo.

Sead Spahovic, the lawyer for Hilmi Kelmendi, said on November 3 that his client will "leave jail today" and "is a free man."

Spahovic said the prosecution had "called off" the case against Kelmendi, who was arrested while travelling through Serbia on a trip from Kosovo to Germany on October 29.

Kosovo's Foreign Ministry had called Kelmendi's arrest "unacceptable" and said it threatened the "dialogue for the normalization of relations" between the two countries.

Kelmendi's arrest came nearly one month after Serbia's detention of Nehat Thaqi, the police chief of Kosovo's Mitrovica region.

Thaqi, who was facing terrorism-related charges, was released by Serbian police on October 31.