At the Basic Court in Prishtina today, the trial continued against three defendants accused of the terrorist attack in Banjsk\u00eb, Zve\u00e7an, in which police officer Afrim Bunjaku was killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At today’s session, testimony was given by Alban Rashiti, a member of the Rapid Intervention Unit, who was wounded during the attack that occurred in September 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defendants\u2014Blagoje Spasojeviq, Vladimir Toliq, and Dushan Maksimoviq\u2014were brought to court under high security measures. They have been in pre-trial detention since September 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police officer Alban Rashiti, responding to questions from the special prosecutor Naim Abazi, stated that the terrorist attack in Banjsk\u00eb was well planned. During his testimony, he described how, while returning to base in Kushtov\u00eb in Vllahia, they encountered two trucks blocking a bridge in the village of Banjsk\u00eb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rashiti explained that after 9 PM, their base received the first information about a jeep-type vehicle in a meadow, but it was not identified by the border unit since it was not in the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Together with my colleagues \u00c7lirim Shaqiri and Mirsad Kryeziu, I continued from Izvoti to pass near the village of Banjsk\u00eb to continue on the main road and return to the base in Kushtov\u00eb, Vllahia. When we reached the bridge in Banjsk\u00eb on the right side of the road leading to Banjsk\u00eb, we noticed two heavy trucks that had barricaded the bridge, positioned on top of it. We checked for anything suspicious but saw no suspicious persons, only the trucks. The colleagues reported to the center, but there were communication problems with the radio. We moved away to a location where we could give information about what was happening and checked the road for other obstacles. On the main road to the base, there was nothing suspicious, and we reported that two trucks blocked the road,” <\/em>he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alban Rashiti also spoke about the reinforcements that arrived in two vehicles with six police officers, including the now deceased officer Afrim Bunjaku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his testimony, Rashiti described the moment he greeted Bunjaku and the moment of the officer’s death, as well as his own injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “At the moment officer Bunjaku arrived, I moved 3-4 meters to the left side when there was a sudden explosion. I immediately realized I was wounded in my left arm. The explosion was very big, almost among us. We didn\u2019t know where the explosion came from, only when I turned my head to the left did I see fire and black<\/em> smoke and saw that I was hit in the arm. I tried to avoid it by moving into a defensive position. Another explosion occurred near the trucks and the air blasts threw my body. In seconds, gunfire started from all around the village\u2014from dozens of positions with different weapons. We tried to localize the fire, but on my left side, I noticed officer Afrim Bunjaku lying on his back, bleeding from the neck and back, immobile. With my colleague Mirsad Kryeziu, we asked \u00c7lirim to bring the vehicle so we could pull the officer away because the shooting continued. \u00c7lirim started coming toward us but was hit with many bullets, and the vehicle was immobilized,” <\/em>he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The police officer also stated that on the critical night of the terrorist attack in Banjsk\u00eb, the lighting on the bridge was unusual. He believes that the lighting was tampered with by the terrorist group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked by special prosecutor Naim Abazi about his injuries during the attack, Rashiti said that while he had several wounds from the first explosion, the most severe was in his left chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My injuries included a hit I believe from a mine in my left arm at the back. There were bullet wounds that entered from the back, went through the chest, and stopped near the heart. There was also a wound in the right leg at the back. Another hit was stopped by the soft part of the bulletproof vest but damaged my muscles with strong pressure. Another bullet hit my waist in the bulletproof vest area,”<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rashiti testified that the terrorist attack in Banjsk\u00eb was planned and coordinated. According to him, this was a military formation attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The first explosion happened from the front, the second from behind. Gunfire came from the entire village, the front from the monastery, and on the left was a sniper who kept firing constantly. His position was very dangerous for us. According to us, this formation wasn\u2019t from just anyone, it was military because every<\/em>thing was coordinated. The shots were from different types of weapons very close to us… From experience, we know that such preparations and formations and such weapons are not held by just any terrorist group but require specific training and very good knowledge. Everything was coordinated, a well-prepared group with a good plan. A well-structured criminal group with persons knowledgeable about weapons. They even used rocket launchers, and an ordinary soldier wouldn\u2019t know how to use those,” <\/em>Rashiti declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides the prosecutor, Rashiti was questioned by his lawyer Naim Rudari and the court panel, but not by the defense lawyers of the three accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kosovo Special Prosecution on September 11 of last year charged Milan Radoucci\u0107 and 44 others for the terrorist attack on September 24, 2023, in Banjsk\u00eb, Zve\u00e7an.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Basic Court in Prishtina rejected trials in absentia for the accused who are not in custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The accused are charged with using heavy armed violence to attempt to detach the northern part of Kosovo\u2019s territory and annex it to the Republic of Serbia, resulting in the death of police officer Afrim Bunjaku and endangering the lives of other police officers and civilians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the Basic Court in Prishtina today, the trial continued against three defendants accused of the terrorist attack in Banjsk\u00eb, Zve\u00e7an, in which police officer Afrim Bunjaku was killed. At today’s session, testimony was given by Alban Rashiti, a member of the Rapid Intervention Unit, who was wounded during the attack that occurred in September […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":74719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301,296],"tags":[6229,3261],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74720,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74718\/revisions\/74720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}