PRISTINA (Reuters) – Three German spies initially suspected of planting a bomb at the EU office in Kosovo are set to fly home once a court has ruled on their case, two top government officials said on Friday. In a case that has attracted wide attention because of its aura of cloak-and-dagger mystery, the three Germans were allowed to proceed under police escort to the airport so they could leave the Balkan country soon after a Kosovo judge reviewed the matter. The three were held after an explosive charge was thrown on November 14 at the International Civilian Office, which oversees Kosovo’s governance, shaking the building and breaking windows but not injuring anyone.

ANKARA (AFP) – The last of three Turks who were stranded in a luxury hotel in Mumbai was taken to safety by Indian security forces on Friday, Turkey’s ambassador to India said. Speaking on NTV television, Ambassador Levent Bilman said the woman had told him over the telephone that Indian security forces came to her room in the Oberoi Trident hotel and took her to safety. A Turkish couple holed up in their room in the same hotel were rescued unscathed on Thursday afternoon, officials said earlier.

ZAGREB (AFP) – A Croatian journalist known for reports on war crimes against Serb civilians committed in the 1990s has been put under 24-hour police protection after receiving a fresh death threat, his daily said on Friday. “You again with your articles. Be careful... It will not end up just like this,” read an SMS text message that Drago Hedl received on his mobile telephone on Thursday, the Jutarnji List newspaper reported. “We will massacre you,” the message said. Hedl has been repeatedly exposed to death threats over his reports on killings of Serbs in the eastern town of Osijek at the outbreak of Croatia’s 1991-1995 independence war.

A Bosnian court on Friday sentenced a former Croat soldier to nine years in jail for raping a Serb woman during the 1992-1995 war. The war crimes chamber of the court of Bosnia-Herzegovina found Zrinko Pincic, 60, guilty of crimes against Serb civilians in a village near the southern town of Konjic. It was there that Pincic repeatedly visited a house where Serb civilians, including children, were detained and forced a woman there to have sexual intercourse with him, a court statement said. In doing so, he kept “his rifle by the bed and threatened her,” it added. (AFP)

Romanian police say they have arrested a suspect in the killing of the son of Chad’s president. Brahim Deby, the eldest son of President Idriss Deby, was found dead in the basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb in July 2007. He was asphyxiated by chemicals from a fire extinguisher that lay near his body. Romanian police said Friday they arrested a French-Romanian national identified as Marius C. several days ago after acting on a warrant from France. A Romanian court will decide when the suspect will be handed over to French authorities. (AP)

The Netherlands has opted against opening its borders to workers from Bulgaria and Romania from January 1 amid heightened fears over job security, the Social Affairs ministry said Thursday. “The minister told parliament (Thursday) that there will be no free entry to Romanians and Bulgarians from January 1,” Bea Versteeg, spokeswoman for minister Piet Hein Donner, told AFP. “The economic crisis has caused concern for rising unemployment, and that is why the minister won’t open the borders. “This doesn’t mean that we will not allow them by 2010 or 2011, when the economy starts booming again and we need the people.” (AFP)

A Polish woman has trekked 1,400 kilometers (almost 900 miles) from her hometown to a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia to promote world peace, an official website said on Friday. Bednarczyk Sieminska, from Kazimierz Dolny near the eastern Polish town of Lublin, walked for 62 days to reach Medjugorje carrying only a cross, prayer book and a map. “We live in difficult times and I think that people must reconcile. All humans are brothers, which is why I chose not to bring with me bread or water, but to depend on the people,” Sieminska was quoted as saying by Medjugorje. org. (AFP)