BBC

A Koso­van judge has ordered three Ger­mans sus­pect­ed of throw­ing an explo­sive device at the EU head­quar­ters in Pristi­na to be held for 30 days.

The three report­ed­ly deny involve­ment in the attack on 14 Novem­ber, say­ing they were detained while inves­ti­gat­ing it them­selves.

Win­dows in the glass-front­ed build­ing were shat­tered but nobody was hurt.

Ger­man and Koso­vo media report that the men are Ger­man intel­li­gence agents but offi­cials in Berlin refuse to com­ment.

Lawyers for the detainees say the pros­e­cu­tion is seek­ing ter­ror­ism charges that car­ry a max­i­mum 20-year sen­tence.

A spokesman for the Ger­man for­eign min­istry in Berlin con­firmed that three Ger­mans had been arrest­ed on Thurs­day, but declined to make any fur­ther com­ment as an inves­ti­ga­tion was under way.

The Ger­man week­ly Der Spiegel said the men worked for the Ger­man intel­li­gence agency BND, and that they told inves­ti­ga­tors they had been exam­in­ing the scene of the explo­sion, but had not been involved in it.

Koso­vo declared inde­pen­dence from Ser­bia in Feb­ru­ary after nine years under UN stew­ard­ship and is recog­nised by more than 50 coun­tries, includ­ing Ger­many.

Four days before the bomb attack, Kosovo’s Alban­ian major­i­ty reject­ed an agree­ment between the UN and Ser­bia on the deploy­ment of the much-delayed EU police and jus­tice mis­sion Eulex.