Serbia's Supreme Court on Wednesday released Milan Radojecic, a suspect in the leadership of an armed group that killed a Kosovo policeman in September, despite calls from Kosovo's president to extradite him and other terrorists to her country for trial.
The Serbian Interior Ministry had earlier announced Radojcic had been arrested, placed in pretrial detention and handed over to the Public Prosecution in Belgrade, and said that his apartment and other properties belonging to him were raided and searched.
It said Radojcic had been questioned on suspicion of preparing a criminal conspiracy, illegally possessing weapons and explosives and committing dangerous acts against public safety.
Kosovo President Viujusa Osmani has demanded that Radojic and other terrorists be extradited to her country for trial.
The announcement of Radojić's arrest and subsequent release comes a day after Serbia confirmed the withdrawal of some of its troops stationed near the border with Kosovo and its return to normal troop levels along the border with Kosovo, after the numbers deployed there increased following an exchange of fire in northern Kosovo that left four people dead.
Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina have escalated since Sept. 24, when Kosovo police near the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo clashed with about 30 armed Serbs holed up in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three of the attackers and one policeman were killed.
The United States said on Tuesday that Serbia had begun withdrawing its troops stationed on the border with Kosovo, after Washington had warned that Belgrade had deployed troops on this border in an unprecedented manner, and the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, considered that the withdrawal of Serbian troops would help reduce tensions.
In a move to ease tensions between the two sides, Romania said it would send 100 troops to Kosovo to reinforce KFOR, the 4500,<>-strong NATO peacekeeping force in that country.
On Friday, NATO said it was ready to bolster its force deployed in Kosovo to deal with the situation caused by the killing of a Kosovo Albanian policeman in the north of the country, where Serbs are in the majority in several cities. Britain has announced it will deploy about 600 troops to Kosovo to bolster the KFOR force.
Speaking exclusively to Al Jazeera, Kosovo Interior Minister Cjalil Svicela accused Serbia of direct involvement in the attack by a Serb group in northern Kosovo that killed one person. He said Kosovo had obtained evidence, including photographs and documents, confirming this involvement.
The skirmishes have raised new international concerns for stability in Albanian-majority Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla-style uprising and a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 led to the expulsion of Serbian security forces.