Criminal violations in the yoke/REL: Here's what happened on February 9th

Prosecutors' offices in various regions of Kosovo have launched investigations into several criminal violations during the parliamentary elections on February 9. According to official reports, the most frequent violations were violations of the secrecy of voting and attacks on officials.

Less than an hour after polling stations opened for the February 9 elections, a man was arrested in Podujeva, about 30 kilometers from Pristina.

This is because, according to the Police, during the voting process, he did not respect Police orders and even physically attacked a police officer.

This incident was among the first to be recorded during election day, which, according to monitoring institutions and organizations, was generally calm.

A short time later, at around 9 a.m., two men were arrested in Pristina. They are suspected of placing election-related pamphlets near a polling station.

They were taken into custody as suspects for the crime of "inciting hatred and intolerance."

Although it did not provide further details about these two cases, the Pristina Prosecution Office told REL that on election day they recorded a third case of criminal violations related to the elections.

A man with the initials XH.A was detained in Fushë Kosovë on suspicion of assisting in voting more than once "allegedly for his relatives."

According to the Law on Elections in Kosovo, assisted voting is permitted when it is proven that the voter is unable to complete this process on their own.

However, no one may assist more than once or for more than one person in voting.

According to Kosovo Police data, throughout the entire election day, a total of seven people were detained by the Police for various violations in the voting process. Some of them were taken into custody and some were released under regular procedures.

Even in the southeastern part of Kosovo, incidents began early.

At around 7:30 am, in Gjilan, a man was arrested at the polling station for allegedly violating the secrecy of the vote.

According to the Criminal Code, this offense can mean cases where someone, by use of force or serious threat, "or in any other unlawful manner, demands from (another) person to show how he or she voted."

Depending on whether the offense was committed by voters or officials engaged in the electoral process, this offense is punishable by one to five years in prison.

In Gjilan, also on election day, a person was arrested after ignoring orders to leave the polling station even after it had been closed to voters.

In Vushtrri, there was also an arrest that day for violating the secrecy of voting.

Suspicions of election irregularities did not end with the voting process.

After the centers were closed and the Central Election Commission (CEC) began the process of counting votes and publishing the results in real time online, the official platform where this was done went down.

The Chairman of the CEC, Kreshnik Radoniqi, announced late Sunday that the vote counting software had failed, but did not clarify the reasons.

On the other hand, the Basic Prosecution Office in Pristina said that after receiving information about the malfunctioning of the CEC platform, it requested from this institution the necessary information to verify whether there are elements of the commission of a criminal offense or not.

So far, the Prosecutor's Office has not provided details on what stage these investigations are at.

Although no criminal violations were reported during the election process, the Prizren region faced another incident on election day.

On February 9, the Police arrested the current Minister of Regional Development, Fikrim Damka, and another person, his family member.

According to the Prosecution, both arrested are suspected of assault and threats against two other people.

"There are two injured victims who have been threatened. Initially, one of the victims, a woman, was attacked and the other a man. They were threatened with their lives by the persons who are detained," announced the prosecutor in the case, Petrit Kryeziu.

The stamp belongs to the Turkish Democratic Party of Kosovo, while the two victims, according to Kryeziu, were from the Turkish Innovative Movement Party.

Although the Prosecution requested detention for them, the Prizren Court on February 11th decided to place them under house arrest for one month.

So far, there has been no public reaction from the Kosovo Government regarding the case.

The EU mission in Kosovo, as well as election monitoring organizations in the country, have mainly praised the electoral process and the small number of incidents.

The network of monitoring organizations, Democracy in Action, after the closing of polling stations, said that February 9 was "an excellent electoral process, with integrity and without significant problems."

This year, for the first time, the Central Election Commission has also begun installing cameras at polling stations to ensure that potential violations can be recorded and used as evidence by law enforcement agencies.

Neither local prosecutors nor the CEC have responded to questions about whether they had to use the recordings from these cameras as evidence in any of the cases./REL