The cases uncovered so far, however, do not provide answers to the possible extent of BIA activity in Kosovo. It is not publicly known how many people may have been recruited, how long the connections with Serbian intelligence may have lasted, or how much information may have ended up with them.
In just over two years, several people have been arrested in Kosovo on suspicion of spying for Serbia’s Security and Information Agency, BIA. Taken together, the cases show a wide range of information that, according to the Special Prosecution, was of interest: from the Kosovo Police and the Kosovo Intelligence Agency (KIA), to political developments, elections, members of certain communities and influential individuals. Some of the cases are still under trial. In others, there have already been convictions. They do not in themselves prove the existence of a single operation or a coordinated network of BIA in Kosovo. But they raise the question of what it seeks and what it can do with the information once it has obtained it. “It works mostly for the benefit of people. Be it for information, or for influence through institutions,” Dušan Janjić, founder of the Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade, told Radio Free Europe.
One of the most recent cases began trial on September 7 at the Basic Court in Pristina.
Fatmir Sheholli is accused of espionage and blackmail. The Kosovo Special Prosecution Office claims that he was recruited by the BIA and that he collected information about political developments, the security situation and the functioning of Kosovo institutions. According to the indictment, he is also suspected of participating in a plan to compromise Kosovo officials and interfere in the 2025 local elections.
According to the Prosecution, a photograph of a document called “Top Secret 2” was also found on his phone, the contents of which claim the existence of a plan to use the Islamic religion to divide Albanians and change the West’s perception of Kosovo. The authorship and authenticity of the document have not been publicly clarified. The Islamic Community of Kosovo has denied the claims it contains and has demanded an investigation into its origin and authenticity. The publication of the document’s contents prompted reactions and clashes on social media, including allegations of links between the BIA and members of the Muslim community in Kosovo. However, the indictments do not indicate what happens next with the information that, according to the Prosecution, is collected and forwarded to Serbian intelligence.
Intelligence experts say that gathering information itself is only part of a service’s job. Just as important is who provides it, what access the source has, and what the information and network created can then be used for. Daniel Lomas, a professor of intelligence and security at the University of Nottingham in England, says that the first stage is usually gathering information. “First you try to get information from sources, so about the politics of a country, the economy of a country, who is up, who is down, political gossip, developing networks of people throughout society,” Lomas explains to Radio Free Europe. But, according to him, the networks created can later acquire another function: to be used for political influence. Radio Free Europe has reached out to the BIA to get its position on the cases and allegations about its activities in Kosovo, but has not received a response.
WHAT INFORMATION IS REQUIRED?
The indictments filed in Kosovo provide some clues about the type of information allegedly sought. Bedri Shabani and Muharrem Qerimi are accused of collecting and passing on information related to the KLA, the Kosovo Police and the Kosovo Intelligence Agency. According to the indictment, Shabani also collected material on the Reçak massacre, while Qerimi collected information on witnesses for the Special Court. Both have pleaded not guilty and their trial continues.
In another case, Fehim Sali is suspected of having collected and forwarded information and documents for certain individuals in Kosovo during 2024 and 2025, including individuals described by the Prosecution as members of Wahhabi circles. Among those already convicted of espionage are Aleksandar Vllajic and Jelena Djukanovic. Janjic says that the interest of an intelligence service is not limited to specific documents or data. Equally important are the people who have access to them. According to him, the BIA is interested in sources that can provide information, but also in influential individuals. “It is known who the majority population in Kosovo is – it is Albanians – it is known who has influence in the economy,” says Janjic.
He adds that the goal is to access “quality sources of information.” But the importance of a source within an institution is not necessarily limited to what one can glean from it.
Lomas takes the police as an example. “The police can do more than the average citizen can. They have different powers of surveillance. They can have access to certain types of information,” he says.
A person within the police, according to him, can also help identify other people who could be targets for recruitment or create opportunities for other operations.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE INFORMATION?
Janjic is cautious when asked what exactly happens to the information that reaches the BIA. “I can only imagine this, to be honest,” he says. In principle, according to him, the information passes to the analytical sectors, where it is “sorted, classified” and then used depending on the assessment, primarily political. He mentions blackmail and influence as some of the possibilities for their use. Lomas explains the process from the perspective of the functioning of intelligence services in general. Information about politics, institutions and individuals, he says, can show a foreign service where weaknesses or divisions lie within a government, party or society. “Intelligence allows you to open cracks within governments, political parties, wider society, because it gives you clear knowledge of how to exploit a given society,” says Lomas.
The next step, he says, could be what is known in the intelligence world as “covert action”: no longer just gathering information, but taking action on the basis of what has been learned. “…so you are no longer just standing on the sidelines and gathering information, but you are also doing something based on it,” he says.
This does not mean that the cases uncovered in Kosovo prove the existence of such a coordinated BIA strategy. The court proceedings concern the individual responsibility of specific individuals, while some of the Prosecution’s claims have not yet been proven with final verdicts. Radio Free Europe asked the Kosovo Special Prosecution about the number of individuals under investigation, indictment or trial for espionage in favor of Serbia, about possible common links and methods between the cases, as well as about suspicions of the involvement of individuals within public institutions, but received no response. The Kosovo Intelligence Agency, which REL asked about its assessment of the possible scope of BIA’s activities and the risk it may pose to Kosovo’s institutions, did not respond either.
CAN ESPIONAGE DESTABILIZE A COUNTRY?
Lomas warns against concluding that espionage, in and of itself, can destabilize a state.
“I think espionage only goes so far,” he says. Foreign services, he says, do not need to create divisions or discontent within a society themselves. They can identify and exploit them. To explain this mechanism, Lomas takes Russia as an example. He mentions the debates about migration in Germany, emphasizing that the concerns of a part of society on this issue were not created by Russia. But, he says, external Russian actors have amplified such discontent, including through social networks. He also compares this to a fire: discontent exists, while interference from outside can add “fuel to the fire,” making it bigger and more dangerous.
Lomas does not say that the cases in Kosovo show an identical pattern. But in the Western Balkans Region, he sees this also in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine and its broader clash with the West. According to him, Russia may have an interest in spaces where existing tensions can be kept open and where NATO’s attention can be shifted to another crisis. In Kosovo, the debate sparked by the “Top Secret 2” document, the authorship and authenticity of which remain unclear, showed how quickly a sensitive issue can produce polarization. For Janjic, information leakage, infiltration of institutions and attempts at influence cannot be seen completely separate. He also links the intelligence activity to Serbia’s policy of not recognizing Kosovo and to the interest in information that, in his opinion, can be used to discredit it. “When you don’t know Kosovo, then you have to collect as much negative data as possible about the situation there,” says Janjic.
HOW CAN KOSOVO BE DEFENDED?
For Lomas, protection does not only begin with the detection and arrest of suspects. One of the tools is also the public exposure of the ways in which foreign intelligence services operate. He cites the experience of Western European countries, where the publication of espionage cases has also been used to raise public and institutional awareness of the methods of recruitment and the risks they pose. “The fact that you have had these arrests and that they have been made public is a way of making it clear to people that these foreign intelligence services pose a threat. They are a threat. They are not going to disappear,” says Lomas.
Equally important, he said, is counterintelligence: identifying people and institutions that may be most vulnerable, uncovering recruitment efforts, and sharing information with international partners. Janjic also emphasizes strengthening intelligence and security capacities in Kosovo. But he says the responsibility does not fall solely on Kosovo institutions. According to him, NATO, the United States, and European partners have a role in raising security standards, strengthening the capacities of Kosovo institutions, and creating better mechanisms for cooperation and information exchange. The cases uncovered so far, however, do not provide an answer to the possible extent of BIA activity in Kosovo. It is not publicly known how many people may have been recruited, how long the connections with Serbian intelligence may have lasted, or how much information may have ended up with it. For some of the defendants, even the prosecution’s own claims have yet to be proven in court. (RFE)