An image was published with the caption "The statement that shocked Kosovo: Serbian minister heading to Special Court, international arrest sought".
content was published on Thursday (July 16) on the Facebook page of the medium "Kanal 10" and the post also contains the ovary of the article with the same caption as the title.
What's wrong with the title?
Hibrid.info has analyzed the wording in the title. The words "Special" and "international arrest requested" have been interpreted by commentators as a matter for which criminal proceedings have already been initiated or an arrest warrant has been issued against the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government in Serbia, Snezhana Paunović, for declaring that if she were in Slobodan Milošević's place in 1999, she would have carried out ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
But the wording in the title does not specify which institution is referred to by the term "Special", nor does it clarify the real nature of the procedure in question.
In public discourse in Kosovo, the term “Special” is commonly used to refer to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, known as the “Special Court”, which has a mandate to handle certain cases related to crimes committed during the war in Kosovo (see here).
Therefore, for the reader, this formulation may create the impression that Minister Paunović is facing a trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
Based on Article 7 of Law No. 05/L-053, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers have a defined temporal and geographical mandate. This institution has exclusive jurisdiction only over crimes related to the war period in Kosovo, namely for acts committed or initiated in Kosovo between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000 (see here).
Also, the wording “international arrest requested”, placed in the same title after this phrase, may reinforce this impression on the reader. It lacks key information about who exactly is requesting this measure and what the real nature of the procedure is.
This combination of the mention of "to the Special Court" and "international arrest warrant" could mean that concrete legal action has already been taken against the Serbian minister and that she is close to facing a court proceeding or being sent to a justice institution.
Although the image of the post, in addition to the caption, also includes a document that reads "criminal report", user reactions show that a portion of the audience has understood the content precisely in this way.
As of the time of writing, the post has generated over 2,900 reactions, over 350 comments and dozens of shares, while some commentators have expressed their belief that international justice institutions have already initiated criminal proceedings or issued a real arrest warrant against the Serbian minister.
However, the information confirmed by the content of the article was related to a statement by lawyer Gent Gjini, who warned of filing a criminal complaint and seeking an international arrest warrant for the Serbian minister, through Interpol. This lawyer also filed a criminal complaint with the Special Prosecutor's Office against the Serbian minister on Friday (July 17) for this statement (see hereHe reiterated his position on the request for international arrest against Paunović.
What does the law say about criminal reporting and what is the path to international arrest?
According to Criminal Procedure Code, a criminal report is simply an official notification or signal made to the State Prosecutor that there is a suspicion that a criminal offense has been committed.
Anyone (a citizen, a lawyer, or a ministry) can file a criminal report if they hear or see something illegal.
What happens after it is filed? It goes to the prosecutor, who has a legal deadline of 30 days to review it. The prosecutor can immediately dismiss it if there are no elements of a criminal offense, or he can issue a Decision to begin an investigation.
At the moment this document is submitted, the person reported (in this case the Serbian minister) is not legally considered an official “suspect.” The report is only the first initial step, but it does not necessarily mean that it will lead to a court case.
Clarifications on how an international arrest warrant can be issued at the request of Kosovo
Law on International Legal Cooperation in Criminal Matters stipulates that for Kosovo to request the extradition or temporary arrest of someone abroad, an official arrest warrant, a detention order, or a final conviction must have been issued against that person by the courts of Kosovo.
Until the indictment is filed, it is the competent prosecutor who requests the Ministry of Justice to initiate proceedings. After the indictment, this is done by the competent court.
If the person is located abroad, the Court or the Ministry of Justice may request “temporary arrest for the purpose of extradition” pending complete documentation.
The law states that if a person is arrested in a foreign country on the basis of an international warrant issued by INTERPOL, the Kosovo Ministry of Justice must immediately send that country a formal extradition request.
Since Kosovo is not a member of Interpol, the Ministry of Justice cannot send the arrest warrant directly to the organization's headquarters. It must submit it to the UNMIK Liaison Office, which functions as an intermediary based on a 2002 memorandum.
While member states need from 2 hours to 2 days to enter a person into the Interpol system (Red Notice), bureaucratic procedures through UNMIK mean that Kosovo needs from 9 months to 2 years to do the same.
Kosovo's border crossings are not connected in real time to the Interpol database, which means our police cannot see international requests on the spot (see here).
What was known until the content was published?
Until the moment of publication of this article, there was no information that legal proceedings had been initiated against the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government in Serbia, Snezhana Paunović.
However, a little later, the acting Minister of Justice, Donika Gërvalla, through a posting published on Thursday (July 16) on her Facebook account, announced that she has filed a criminal complaint with the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office against the Serbian minister.
According to her announcement, the criminal complaint was related to Paunović's statements during an interview given on July 12, 2026 for the show "Neispričano" on the Serbian media "Kurir", where she stated that, if she had been in Slobodan Milošević's position in 1999, she would have carried out the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo (see here).
Analyze:
The title does not specify which institution the term "Special" refers to and does not clarify that the information is related to a filed criminal report.
Such wording creates the impression that Serbian Minister Snezhana Paunović is already facing a procedure from the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague or the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office and that concrete legal action has already been taken against her, including the issuance of an international arrest warrant.
However, the confirmed information relates to the filing of a criminal report with the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office against the Serbian minister, while the request for an international arrest warrant through Interpol is only an action announced by a lawyer.
So far, there is no information that any international arrest warrant has been issued or that any proceedings have been initiated against her by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague or the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office.
Therefore, based on the working methodology, Hibrid.info evaluates the title formulated in this way as "Clickbait".
Reasoning:
“Clickbait” is considered to be informational content whose title is general and does not disclose the location of the event, context and relevance. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the audience with sensational headlines with misleading consequences, which do not accurately clarify the content of the article. “Clickbait” headlines are mainly made to attract readability in the case of media publications and/or to earn from clicks in the case of commercial publications.