From War Footage to Espionage: The Evolution of a Manipulator
Milaim Zeka built his fame on exposing secrets, but his own dealings reveal a man who turned truth into currency and journalism into a theatre of manipulation.
On the morning of the ninth of October, Milaim Zeka sat in the corner of the café at Hotel Prishtina, smoking with the composure of a man accustomed to being noticed. His phone lay facedown beside a small espresso; he told anyone who would listen that something “big” was coming. When the police arrived, he did not flinch. He spoke to them in the same tone he would use on television that evening half grievance, half bravado calling the arrest “a political film”. It was, he said, another attempt to silence him.
By the time he appeared on T7 that night1, his version of events had already shifted. In his morning statement2 he claimed that the documents in question had come from Fatmir Sheholli, supposedly via “GIZ Germany”. Later he said he had verified nothing, adding that he could not read Serbian. Yet sources familiar with him briefed Gunpowder Chronicles that Zeka does, in fact, speak fluent Serbian. He also told police that he had contacted Chief Prosecutor Blerim Isufaj to hand over the material handed to him by Sheholli, though our verification shows that no such call or meeting took place. He asserted that a second person had been present when he met Sheholli, but declined to identify them. Photographs from Sheholli’s own Facebook posts tell a different story: the two men meeting repeatedly alone3, leaning close across coffee tables or clasping hands in empty offices. According to investigators, both were under surveillance at the time for suspected collaboration in an effort to paralyse parliamentary proceedings through kompromat, files believed to have been supplied by Serbian intelligence. The goal, sources allege, was to intimidate or blackmail certain MPs to block4 the consolidation of Kosovo’s new parliament5. Zeka’s chief target, they say, was Nenad Rasic, a Kosovo Serb politician whose independence from Belgrade’s line has long irritated the Serbian establishment. Rasic was elected Deputy Speaker6 the day after Zeka’s arrest along with Sheholli, and for the first time since the February 2025 election the Assembly moved forward with its work.
Contradiction has always been Zeka’s chosen rhythm. In public he plays the truth-teller, in private, the broker of intrigue. He claims to uphold morality yet delights in recounting his own indecencies. He insists he refused to publish a compromising video “out of ethics”, then laughs about having sex “hundred times in Sweden offices”. The coarseness disarms, it makes scandal entertaining. His enemies, he says, are hypocrites. His vulgarity, he insists, is authenticity.
The contradictions stretch back to his early career. In the years after the war, when Kosovo’s new media was desperate for heroes, Zeka styled himself as the man who had filmed the Liberation Army from the inside. But that same footage soon appeared on Serbian state television, sold for 1,950 euros paid into his wife’s account in Tirana7. It was used in a propaganda film about the so-called “Yellow House”8, the story of organ-trafficking that The Hague has since discredited. He claimed the clips were already public, they were not. The footage was exclusive, and the sale recast victims as villains. When confronted years later, he shrugged: “They would have used it anyway.” In that shrug lies the entire philosophy of Milaim Zeka, truth as merchandise, ethics as inconvenience.
Behind the performance lies something darker, a proximity to an international hybrid-influence network centred on Halit Sahitaj, the self-styled fixer now under house arrest in Spain. As reported by El Español on 4 September 20259, Sahitaj ran a Marbella-based structure that blended extortion, money-laundering and intelligence work for Russian-linked interests. Prosecutors describe him as a “Russian GURU operator”, his Bentleys, villas and watches financed through coercion and kompromat10. The Marbella network connected to Moscow via intermediaries associated with the GRU and FSB, a fusion of mafia and state. Our own investigation corroborates11 that Zeka served as one of its media amplifiers, using his television platform to legitimise fabricated dossiers and falsified witness accounts aimed at discrediting the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. In one instance he relayed a forged document produced by the U.S.-based Compass Law Firm12 under Sahitaj’s direction to Western interlocutors, including former U.S. envoy Richard Grenell, claiming it proved prosecutorial misconduct. In truth, it was part of a disinformation and espionage operation designed to delegitimise The Hague and paralyse Kosovo’s justice system.
Zeka’s collaborations extended to Sahitaj and to Darko Perovic13, nominally described as a Serbian journalist according to Milaim Zeka, but upon verification, there are no traceable records of his journalistic work. Field documentation and security briefings indicate that he is, in fact, an operative within Serbia’s secret service network in Montenegro. Perovic’s task in the campaign to undermine14 the Hague’s credibility was to channel falsified witness material, which Zeka then laundered through the Compass Law report to give the appearance of legitimacy. What looked like journalistic investigation was, in effect, a propaganda relay engineered to corrode public trust in international justice.
He portrays himself as a lone patriot defending the Kosovo Liberation Army’s honour, yet repeatedly advances narratives identical to those of Belgrade’s state media. He brands his critics “agents of UDB”, a slur that once justified surveillance and arrest. The irony is painful in accusing others, he perfects the methods of the old apparatus.
Those who have worked around him describe two registers. There is the public Zeka, the loud, theatrical scourge of corruption and the private operator who speaks softly, offering “documents”, seeking introductions, floating rumours. In both guises he sells attention. A senior editor in Prishtina put it succinctly: “He believes truth is what makes the camera stay on.”
For years, that instinct served him well. In the visa-fraud15 case that ensnared more than nine hundred victims, he cast himself as martyr. When fined for defaming16 Hashim Thaçi, he called the judgment “a blow to press freedom”. Each conviction became evidence of persecution, every scandal a stage. But in recent months, the play has narrowed. With Sahitaj’s Marbella network exposed by Spanish courts and Perovic’s name appearing in intelligence logs, the circle around Zeka has begun to look less like a press corps and more like a chain of influence.
Whether by vanity or by calculation, Milaim Zeka has long blurred the boundary between journalist and operative. The Marbella case17, the Compass Law fabrications, the furtive meetings with Sheholli, all trace lines that converge on the same axis, information weaponised as leverage, patriotism sold as camouflage. What began as performance has become, by all credible accounts, participation in a coordinated espionage and disinformation campaign aimed at the institutions of a fragile state. The question that lingers, unanswered, is whether Milaim Zeka was merely a performer seduced by the power of intrigue, or an active instrument in a foreign design to break Kosovo from within.
When the police released him that evening, he returned to the same café. The next morning he was there again, sipping coffee beneath the glass racks, telling the waiter the story of his own arrest. “They treated me very well,” he said, then, with a faint smile, “It was all political, of course.” A television above the bar replayed his T7 interview, the same man, more animated, gesturing, indignant, righteous. In the mirror behind the counter his reflection flickered beside the screen, two versions of himself caught in the same frame. He looked up, watched his image speak, and murmured, almost affectionately, “You see? Even they can’t keep up.”
Editor’s note:
»This article is based on verified police documents, social-media evidence, recorded statements, and independent field briefings from sources in Prishtina, London, Berlin, Bern, Brussels and Madrid. Information concerning Halit Sahitaj’s network draws on court filings and El Español’s reporting from September 2025, corroborated through The GPC’s own cross-border investigation. References to Zeka’s interactions with Fatmir Sheholli are supported by timestamped public posts and corroborating surveillance summaries. All factual claims meet The GPC’s editorial standard of multi-source verification.«
Espionage Arrest Shadows Kosovo’s Parliamentary Breakthrough
Kosovo’s parliament overcame a months-long stalemate on Friday, October 10, when lawmakers declared the chamber constituted after electing Nenad Rasic, a Serb MP, as a deputy speaker. The vote 71 in favour, nine against and 24 abstentions, according to the session tally followed a string of failed ballots for nine candidates from the Belgrade-aligned
Video Post of Milaim Zeka on Facebook, 9 Oct, 2025.
Fatmir Sheholli Postim në Facebook, 17 Jan, 2025.
Kosovo’s Deadlock Broken, But Democracy Still at Risk
Kosovo’s parliament broke months of deadlock electing Dimal Basha as speaker, but opposition sabotage aligned with Belgrade threatens sovereignty, justice, and the republic’s fragile democratic future. — The GPC Balkan Watch.
Espionage Arrest Shadows Kosovo’s Parliamentary Breakthrough
Kosovo’s parliament constituted after electing Serb MP Nenad Rasic deputy speaker, ending months-long deadlock. An espionage arrest spotlights Belgrade’s influence operations. — The GPC Balkan Watch.
Nenad Rašić Elected Deputy Speaker of Kosovo Assembly After MPs Reject Nine Srpska Lista Candidates — KS.
Milaim Zeka’s Facebook Post — [https://www.facebook.com/milaimzekaobri/posts/pfbid0gHfLXgqUJGP7JJLoUCyXpehv4MPXfMoevjiSYUBfQqxQzu9ivizYvQnkp46CrCGPl]
M Zeka Facebook Post on Wartime Footage to RTS Zaric Planeta [PDF File]
RTS Planeta Platform dedicated to Sladana Zaric Production — (https://rtsplaneta.rs/en)
Sladana Zaric, autorka filma „Dosije Кosovo - Žuta kuća“, zahvalila se MUP-u Srbije — YouTube MUP Serbia.
Marbella, Money & Moscow: what El Español just revealed and what we found when they knocked on our door
El Español exposes Halit Sahitaj’s Marbella network: transnational extortion, luxury assets, ties to Russian intelligence, and a campaign aimed at undermining Kosovo’s war-crimes tribunal now. — The GPC I Unit.
Inside the Disinformation Machine
From Crime to Covert Operations: The Rise of Halit Sahitaj in Targeting Kosovo’s Special Chambers Tribunal. The GPC I Unit traced the Criminal Turned Operative’s Path in Disinformation Warfare. — The GPC I Unit.
Double Dealing: A Journalist, a Fixer, and a Master of Manipulation
Unveiling Milaim Zeka’s role in manipulating Kosovo’s narrative, targeting the KSC in The Hague with a campaign of disinformation and deceit utilising Russian secret service assets and criminal ties. — The GPC I Unit.
Kosovo’s Veterans and Ministers Are Playing with Fire
Kosovo’s war crimes court, born of its own parliament, now faces political attacks as ministers and veterans risk trading liberation’s legacy for the brittle currency of impunity. — The GPC Balkan Watch.
Merrte 3500 euro për një vizë pune në Gjermani, arrestohet deputeti shqiptar — BalkanWeb (https://www.balkanweb.com/merrte-3500-euro-per-nje-vize-pune-ne-gjermani-arrestohet-deputeti-shqiptar/#gsc.tab=0]
Sex, Lies, and Kompromat: Inside the Zeka–Sahitaj Nexus in Marbella
In Marbella’s shadows, a failed seduction, a fake dossier, and a 5/k bribe collide, revealing a deeper Balkan conspiracy against press and justice. — The GPC I Unit.