Officials of the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo released KP journalist Daria Aslamova. On the night of August 7, she was detained while trying to enter Kosovo from Serbia, she. The head of the Republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dzhelal Shvetsla, accused the correspondent of working for Russian military intelligence.
On the morning of August 7, a journalist appeared He contacted KP’s editors and said he was in the town of Raska, on the Serbia-Kosovo border. After he was detained, the Kosovo authorities released him, and then he took the bus to the border. The journalist said that after being detained in Kosovo, he was told that he could be exchanged for US citizens or extradited to Ukraine.
“I arrived at the border at four in the morning. Serbian border guards also interrogated me. “They found out why there was no deportation sign,” Aslamova said.
Aslamova did not specify other details, in particular the reasons for her detention or the charges against her.
How did the events unfold
It was learned on the evening of 6 August that the journalist was taken into custody. The head of the Kosovo Interior Ministry, Jalal Shvetsla, announced on Facebook (the owner of Meta is considered an extremist organization) that the Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter was detained while trying to enter the area and accused him of espionage.
“Today Daria Aslamova was detained at a northern checkpoint. “Several countries have proven that he is spying for Russian military intelligence and acting under the guise of a journalist,” he said.
Schwetzla did not specify what the countries and evidence mean. She also suggested that Aslamova “promoted the Russian occupation of Ukraine by participating in the conflicts in Ukraine”. He pointed out that Kosovo authorities are aware of Aslamova’s activities and that she is already banned from entering many countries. For her, Aslamova’s arrival is linked to Serbia’s tendency to destabilize Kosovo and Belgrade’s use of “Russian ties.”
The head of the Interior Ministry added to the photos of Aslamova, which were published on the KP website at different times: In 2020, during an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in 2016 with Syrian President Bashar Assad, during an interview with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003 against. i and also the background of a banner showing his business trips to “hot spots”.
Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Aslamova was in Serbia on the orders of the editors, preparing a report on the aggravation of the conflict between Pristina and Belgrade.
The situation at the Serbia-Kosovo border escalated on 31 July due to the ban on Serbian documents in Kosovo – Serbs living in the partially recognized republic were ordered to obtain new documents and car numbers in order to stay in the country. Airstrike signals broke out in the northern areas of Kosovo, and the Serbs began to erect barricades in place of Rudare, on the Pristina-Leposavic highway and not far from the city of Zvecan. Numerous clashes with the Kosovo police were recorded. Then the decision to cancel the documents was postponed to September 2022.
During her career, Aslamova has traveled to many hotspots of the world, including Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, Ossetia, Tajikistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq and others. She became the first journalist to interview Saddam Hussein in 2003.