Suzana Trajkovic: Sladjan is innocent, we demand release on his own recognizance

Family members of former police officer Sladjan Trajkovic, who was arrested in mid-December last year on charges of participating in war crimes, gathered in front of the building of the Special Prosecutor's Office in Pristina this morning.

The gathered family demands that Trajkovic, who is in poor health, gets released on his own recognizance.

Family members carry a banner "My father is innocent" as well as banners in the Albanian language.

Trajkovic's wife, Suzana Trajkovic, says that the family gathered today in front of the Special Prosecutor's Office to support her husband, who is innocent, and to demand that he gets released and transferred to the Clinical Hospital Center in North Mitrovica.

"I appeal to the Pristina judicial authorities to allow Sladjan to defend himself from freedom. He was without therapy for 11 days, and only last Wednesday he was taken to the hospital in Pristina for examination. I know that the procedure is that prisoners are led with chains around their hands and legs, but it is not clear to me that a man who has a wound on the sole of his foot is not allowed to take the elevator to the second floor but has to go on foot. I am appealing to the human rights organizations to help us, and I am also appealing because Lajcak is also coming today so that he can see what is being done to the Serbian people," Trajkovic said.

Trajkovic added that none of the witnesses, neither Serbs nor Albanians, were allowed to come and support her husband.

Sladjan Trajkovic was arrested on December 15 in Bosniak Mahala in North Mitrovica. He is charged with an alleged war crime against the civilian population.