SEESAC DAILY SALW MEDIA MONITORING REPORT 3 August 2007 03 Aug 07 Kosovo police confiscate over 500 small arms, two arrested BBC Monitoring Service, RTKTV Kosovo Police Service [ShPK] in cooperation with Kfor [NATO-led Kosovo Force] last night [Wednesday] seized over 500 small firearms; this is one of the most successful operations carried out by the anti crime police unit. [Reporter] KPS exhibited on the table its latest success, they showed 506 small arms of different calibres; most of the pistols were Berretta type 6.35 calibre, hunting riffles, close to 2,000 rounds, two magazines for AK-47 and 8,000 in cash. The operations which had started four months ago was finalized with the raids of five houses in three different locations, out of two in Pristina and one in village Belo Polje, Podujevo. During the house raids the police seized 100 firearms, while the additional 400 were found in a vehicle. [KPS General Major Rrahman Sylejmani] We are dealing here with trans-border crime, since we have information that considerable amount of these weapons have entered from Macedonia and from other crossing points, and that their destination was Kosovo, as well as other neighbouring countries. [Reporter] The police have arrested two, and they are looking for the third suspect involved in this case. Source within the police told the RTK that the arrested persons are Bedri Abazi and Hasan Rusinovci. According to the initial investigations, the cases deal with weapon smuggling for profit. [Sylejmani] The aim of these weapons was personal gain, they are weapons smugglers. We do not have anything spectacular here. They are weapons smugglers who brought these weapons through different channels for personal gain. Two are arrested, while one managed to escape the police. I believe that we will have the third suspect in custody very soon. [Reporter] Although in most of the seized weapons there is the inscription Zastava [Serbia's largest weapons producer], the police said that further investigation will clarify the exact origin of the seized weapons and their final destination. Based on the KPS statistics, between 1999 and 17 May this year, more than 13,000 weapons of different calibre have been confiscated, nevertheless, statistics carried out by different organizations tell of an enormous number of illegal weapons in the hands of Kosovo citizens. According to a UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] research, it is evaluated that close to 460,000 small arms are in the hands of Kosovo citizens. The black market and the possibility for Kosovo to become a transit nation for the smuggling of illegal weapons has been a problem that Kosovo police have faced since the end of the war.