RTK

Media unions and opposition parties have accused Kosovo's ruling party, Vetevendosje, of the capture of the public broadcaster, RTK, after the board announced that Rilind Gervalla was appointed Director of Television on Tuesday.

BIRN has also reported how family members of former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci were hired as a copyright expert, a camera operator and in the marketing department.

Allegations of nepotism

Kosovo public broadcaster, RTK, board reporting to the parliamentary commission. Photo: BIRN

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti on Thursday promised to respond to a letter from the EU Special Envoy to Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, criticising his government's decision not to allow Serbia's President, Aleksandar Vucic, to visit Kosovo.

Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman (centre) in Babimoc/Babin Most on Sunday. Photo: BIRN.

Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman made an emotional appeal for justice on Sunday in the courtyard of an abandoned house in the village of Babimoc/Babin Most, some 20 kilometres north of Pristina, where she was raped by Serbian policemen when she was a 16-year-old in 1999.

Municipal staff in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, as well as journalists from the public broadcaster, RTK, on Monday joined the wave of strikes sweping the country against the new law on wages.

Imer Beka, the head of the basic prosecution in Pristina, which is in charge of the case of the 11 people arrested for illegally entering Kosovo from Serbia, told BIRN on Wednesday that they are likely to be deported soon.

"It seems that they will be deported, as so far the only criminal offence is illegally passing the border," Beka said.

A US State Department official says that "coordination was missing between Pristina and international officials" when it comes to changing the law on the KSF.

Ridvan Haqifi, an Imam from Gjilan/ Gilanje in Kosovo, better known under his nom-de-guerre Al- Kosovi, was reported dead on Wednesday evening and the news was confirmed to Kosovo's public broadcaster RTK by his family, which did not give any details.

BELGRADE - RTK, Kosovo's public broadcaster, has recently "disclosed" what it called a "network of Russian spies." Without any evidence whatsoever, it included the names of prominent journalists, civil society activists and professional military, predominantly ethnic Serbs. Sputnik Serbia spoke with several people who found themselves on the list.

Former PM and AAK leader Ramush Haradinaj was detained on Wednesday by police in eastern France on a flight from Pristina on the basis of a Serbian arrest warrant that alleges he committed war crimes while he was a guerrilla commander with the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, during the war in Kosovo.

His family confirmed the arrest on Wednesday to Kosovo's public broadcaster RTK.