Zeka, Sheholli and the USB BIA's Playbook
Evidence shows Milaim Zeka’s portal weaponised BIA-fed recordings via Fatmir Sheholli to smear Nenad Rasic and destabilise Kosovo’s Assembly Elections.
What began as a string of breathless “exclusives” on a fringe portal has spiralled into a counter-intelligence case with real stakes for Kosovo’s fragile institutions. At the centre of it stand two men: Fatmir Sheholli, a political operator long rumoured to have one foot in the intelligence world, and Milaim Zeka, a voluble media figure who has alternated for years between crusading self-mythology and the grubby, transactional politics of kompromat1. In the past fortnight, the scaffolding that held their relationship together has become visible and with it a picture of how Serbian intelligence set out to shape Kosovo’s politics through a made-for-media operation that ran straight at the heart of the Assembly’s constitution.
On 30 September, Zeka’s portal “Pa Rrotlla” began publishing what it presented as audio “transcripts2” implicating Nenad Rasic by then poised to become the ethnic-Serb deputy speaker3 in talk of kickbacks, invoices and favours.
“Pa Rrotlla brings exclusively… a conversation that raises serious doubts about corruption within the Government of Kosovo,”
- the site announced, introducing a running series framed as ministerial graft and stitched together with suggestive narration and partial, frequently inaudible lines.
The portal asserted, incorrectly, that Rasic was a serving minister in the Kurti government, in fact, the following week parliament would elect him deputy speaker from the Serb community, a choice that broke4 an eight-month deadlock5 and enraged Belgrade’s proxies.
The material landed precisely as Kosovo’s leadership positions were being decided. With the Serbian List boycotting and threatening appeals, Rasic who opposes Belgrade’s iron hold over Serb politics in Kosovo, was advanced by a cross-party majority. International wires noted the significance6, Belgrade-aligned outlets fumed, constitutional lawyers argued7. The timing of the “leaks” was exquisite.
Then the floor dropped. On 9 October, police arrested Sheholli8 on suspicion of espionage in an operation led by the Special Prosecution, with raids at his home and vehicle. Officials said he was detained for 48 hours pending a detention request9, the interior minister hailed10 the case as a priority for national security. The following day, courts approved pre-trial custody11.
By evening, broadcasters were carrying exclusive footage of the arrest and Zeka was already everywhere, on Facebook12, in studio chairs insisting he had simply met a source for coffee when officers swept in. He told T7’s13 “Frontal” that he was questioned as a witness and volunteered that the “Pa Rrotlla” materials had come to him via a USB drive he attributed to Sheholli.
In his own words: “Fatmir Sheholli… is arrested for some recordings or a USB which he gave to me and that we published on Pa Rrotlla.”
On air he added that he had arranged to deliver the USB and documents to the Special Prosecution after the 12 October local elections. The performance was classic Zeka aggrieved, performative, and assiduously constructed to cast himself as a journalist targeted for telling hard truths14.
But by then, the Prosecution’s file circulated to multiple newsrooms had laid out a very different story. According to those documents, Sheholli was not a whistle-blower at all, prosecutors allege he was working under the instruction of a named official of Serbia’s Security and Information Agency (BIA)15, Bojan Dimic. The file asserts that, on 26 September, following a plan prepared by Dimic16, Sheholli travelled to North Mitrovica and collected a package in the car park of the technical school, audio materials and written transcripts said to be “compromising” conversations involving officials of the Ministry for Communities and Returns. He is further alleged to have received a cash payment as a reward for their publication »in online media« which is exactly what followed on “Pa Rrotlla” four days later.
If correct, the Prosecutor’s account maps neatly onto what unfolded in public view. It also mirrors a pattern Kosovars know well, disinformation packaged for virality, cut to the rhythms of domestic politics, then laundered through talk-shows and portals with just enough gloss to pass for journalism. The haul was not only the narratives themselves, but the reactive chaos they triggered, press cycles consumed by scandal; minority deputies put on the defensive; a constitutional process further polarised.
Zeka’s conduct and his own words tie him to the operation’s media logistics. On Klan Kosova17 and T7 he said he had the files, that he and his team translated and scripted the stories, that he teased further “parts” for broadcast that the Special Prosecution had “moved” to obtain his materials. He presented these as standard reporting. The file suggests they were the downstream product of a hostile service. None of this proves Zeka was knowingly acting to a foreign brief, it does demonstrate that his portal functioned as the delivery system for an information operation alleged to have been directed by BIA.
Rasic himself, facing a barrage in the final days before the Assembly completed its leadership slate, responded in carefully chosen terms. At a press conference in Gracanica on 10 October18, he said that in late July several close associates had been phoned from Serbian numbers by callers who claimed affiliation with Belgrade’s intelligence structures, demanding meetings and warning that “compromising” materials would be published if they refused. He said he had notified authorities when he learned in mid-August that some newsrooms had received recordings, and rejected the “Pa Rrotlla” tapes as fabricated. The next day, as the presidency mandated Albin Kurti to form a government after the leadership vote19, the broader political context snapped into focus, Kosovo’s top officials were openly accusing Serbia20 of direct interference in the run-up to the 12 October local elections, including vote-buying and intimidation in Serb-majority areas21.
In this light, it is worth examining “Pa Rrotlla’s” editorial method. The site presented textual “transcripts” with gaps, partial lines, and authorial scaffolding that told readers what to conclude. It offered no complete audio, no verifiable dates, no chain of custody. The people accused were not afforded meaningful right of reply. It was editorially, an exercise in direction, not documentation. Even the basic premise was bent to fit the attack line labelling Rasic “a minister of Kurti’s Government” suggested the content targeted the administration, when in fact the political object, on the eve of crucial votes, was a Serb politician who refuses Belgrade’s whip.
Nor is this Zeka’s first dance in the shadows where media, politics and intel structures meet. In April, separate reporting traced his public alliance with Halit Sahitaj22, a figure linked by European sources to Russian-aligned networks, and documented his self-promotion as a conduit of “proof” against the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, claims that wilted when pressed for evidence23. Zeka’s own social posts from late 202424 boasted of convincing Sahitaj and a Montenegrin associate Darko Perovic25 to advance a counter-narrative about The Hague’s prosecutors. Whether one sees a grifter’s improvisation or a political asset’s tasking, the pattern is the same, grandiose claims, selective “leaks,” and a studied intimacy with those who trade in kompromat. (Zeka did not substantively respond to detailed questions from investigators, when he does respond publicly, he tends to accuse his critics of conspiracy and jealousy26.)
This latest episode, however, is less about his bombast than about effects. The Prosecution’s file is explicit the aim, it says, was to collect information on Kosovo’s institutions and agitate the information space by “publishing in online media” materials tailored to discredit officials at the Ministry for Communities and Returns. If you were mapping a playbook to disrupt the election of an independent Serb deputy speaker and discredit those around him, you would choose exactly this arc pre-position stories, time their release to parliamentary votes, flood talk-shows, muddy the record just as foreign and domestic observers are scanning for procedural legitimacy27.
The political weather, too, mattered. In the days before the arrest, Kosovo’s president accused Serbia of directly interfering in the municipal elections, Kurti told a cabinet meeting that Belgrade’s methods patronage promises, pressure, cash were a “repeated pattern,” and urged the EU to impose costs. When parliament finally broke the impasse and elected Rasic as deputy speaker, Associated Press and other outlets emphasised how the choice defied the Serbian List, Belgrade’s instrument in Kosovo. Against that backdrop, a series of salacious “audios” purporting to show the Serb deputy speaker’s circle on the take were more than clickbait. They were political ordnance.
Zeka’s own defence that he was targeted for journalism, wilts under the open record he created. He told T7 he received the files, arranged translations, plotted publication and teaser schedules, and was readying further drops. He also volunteered that he had contacted the chief of the Special Prosecution to hand over the USB after election day “so as not to interfere” with the campaign. That timeline is revealing, if he truly thought the materials evidenced crime, the duty was to submit them, not to run a serialised political narrative and wait for the polls to close. That is not reporting, it is programming.
There remains the question Kosovars always ask when the curtain falls, who, exactly, is accountable for the media vector of such an operation? The Prosecution’s file squarely names Sheholli and alleges direction by BIA’s Bojan Dimic. It says the money flowed for publication and that online outlets obliged. It does not, at least in the excerpts reported, announce charges against those outlets or their editors. It may yet do so, it may also be that prosecutors, prioritising the counter-intelligence spine of the case, chose to move first on the alleged handler-asset channel. But the logic of the file points downstream, if publication was purchased to launder hostile influence, the laundromat matters.
Some will protest press freedom here, and they are right to guard it jealously. But freedom is strengthened, not weakened, when those who masquerade as journalists to run black-box operations are made to answer questions any editor should welcome:
Who supplied you?
What did you do to verify?
When did you alert authorities to the existence of covert recordings?
Why did you time your serialisation to parliamentary votes?
Who paid you, and how?
Those questions are not censorship, they are the minimum due diligence in a polity waging a daily information war.
There is a final, sharper edge to this story. Zeka was detained but not arrested28. He gave his witness statement, went back on television, and resumed portraying himself as the protagonist of a political drama scripted by his enemies. If the Prosecution’s narrative holds and if money did change hands to seed hostile content into Kosovo’s media stream, why is the man who operationalised the narrative still filming himself at hotel cafés? Perhaps investigators are moving up the chain first. Perhaps they judge that the clearest criminal exposure sits with the alleged agent and his handlers. Perhaps, too, there are other calculations in play, the enduring Balkan economy of secrets, favours and files in drawers. In a country where dossiers often outlive governments, the question answers itself with a question, on whom does he have kompromat?
Kosovo cannot afford to shrug this off as another autumn scandal. The Assembly only just succeeded in constituting itself, the presidency has mandated Kurti to try to form a cabinet, local elections are under way amid documented pressure in the north. The president and prime minister have accused Serbia of meddling in the ballot, the United States has, in recent weeks, publicly signalled its impatience with Pristina’s political paralysis. In that environment, laundering a BIA tasking through a portal and TV studios is not a sideshow. It is a vector of power.
There is a simple corrective. If Zeka believes he is the journalist he says he is, he can publish the full, unedited audio, verify its provenance with independent forensic experts, disclose his funders, and show the emails that demonstrate his early approach to prosecutors. If he will not, then editors across Kosovo should stop booking him as a source and start treating him as what the record increasingly suggests, a media broker who sells narratives to the highest bidder, and in this case helped carry the payload of a hostile intelligence service into Kosovo’s public square.
The courts will decide what is criminal. The rest is a question of standards. The line between journalism and influence operation is not a blur, it is a choice. In late September, “Pa Rrotlla” made its choice. On 9 October, the state made one, too. The next ones belong to prosecutors who must follow the money and the media, and to the editors who still offer Milaim Zeka a microphone in a country fighting, every day, to keep its democracy from being written by someone else.
Key sources: Special Prosecution arrest and detention announcements; contemporaneous reporting on Nenad Rasic’s election as deputy speaker; Kosovo leaders’ warnings on Serbian interference; “Pa Rrotlla” publications; and televised interviews where Mr. Zeka describes his role and the provenance of the materials. Also, RFE/RL; AP; KOHA; Kallxo.com; Telegrafi and The GPC I Unit International Sources Familiar with the matter.
From War Footage to Espionage: The Evolution of a Manipulator
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.
Kompromat (from Russian компрометирующий материал, “compromising material”) refers to damaging information collected or fabricated to blackmail, manipulate, or influence a person, especially in politics or intelligence contexts.
Web Archive: /web/20251011204927/https://parrotlla.org/ekskluzive-biseda-e-ministrit-te-qeverise-kurti-nenad-rashiq-me-personin-e-quajtur-milan-dabic-ku-permenden-pagesa-e-plane-per-shpenzime-parash/
Then Zeka is given air time on KLAN Kosova and this is what his Portal reports:
https://parrotlla.org/zeka-prokuroria-speciale-ka-levizje-per-ti-marre-materialet-per-rashiqin-video/
Web Archive: /web/20251011205105/https://parrotlla.org/zeka-prokuroria-speciale-ka-levizje-per-ti-marre-materialet-per-rashiqin-video/
This is Klan Kosova’s Youtube aired Programme — YouTube Link.1st of Oct, 2025: https://parrotlla.org/pa-rrotlla-publikon-incizim-te-ri-diskutim-mes-nenad-rashiq-dhe-milan-dabic/
Web Archive: web/20251011210235/https://parrotlla.org/pa-rrotlla-publikon-incizim-te-ri-diskutim-mes-nenad-rashiq-dhe-milan-dabic/1st of Oct, 2025: https://parrotlla.org/pjesa-e-trete-e-pergjimit-traktori-kontrata-false-dhe-pagesat-permes-dhendrit-biseda-e-re-mes-nenad-rashiq-dhe-slavisha-popoviq/
Web Archive: /web/20251011210556/https://parrotlla.org/pjesa-e-trete-e-pergjimit-traktori-kontrata-false-dhe-pagesat-permes-dhendrit-biseda-e-re-mes-nenad-rashiq-dhe-slavisha-popoviq/
2nd of Oct, 2025: https://parrotlla.org/me-motren-apo-me-dhendrin-audioja-e-katert-zbulon-udhezimet-e-rashiq-per-perfitim-fondesh/
Rashiq zgjidhet nënkryetar i Kuvendit, Basha e shpall të përfunduar seancën konstituive — Kallxo.com
Kosovo lawmakers break 8-month deadlock with election of an ethnic Serb to the leadership team — AP.
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.
Kosovo lawmakers break 8-month deadlock with election of an ethnic Serb to the leadership team
Kosovo’s Parliament has ended an eight-month political deadlock by electing its full leadership, including a representative from the ethnic Serb minority — Washington Post / AP.
Hasani: The verdict does not allow Rashiq to be elected deputy speaker of the Assembly, as of today, he does not represent the Serbian community — GExpress.
Arrestohet Fatmir Sheholli nën dyshimet për spiunazh — Kallxo.com
Special Prosecution Formal Note | Facebook Post, Oct 10, 2025.
Xhelal Svecla’s Formal Note | Facebook Post, Oct 9, 2025.
Kosovo’s Capital Basic Court Formal Note | Facebook Post, Oct 10, 2025.
Video Post of Milaim Zeka on Facebook, 9 Oct, 2025.
Dosja e Prokurorisë: Fatmir Sheholli veproi nën urdhrat dhe udhëzimet e zyrtarit të BIA-s, Bojan Dimic — A.Info [Web Archive]
Zeka: Prokuroria Speciale ka lëvizje për t’i marrë materialet për Rashiqin (VIDEO) — Klan Kosova.
Rashiq: Disa persona me numër të Serbisë thirren bashkëpunëtorët e mi, i thanë se do t’i shfaqim në publik disa gjëra për ju — Kallxo.com
Kurti: Serbia po ndërhyn në zgjedhjet lokale të 12 tetorit në Kosovë
“I bëjmë thirrje BE-së që ta dënojnë ndërhyrjen e Beogradit zyrtar në zgjedhjet demokratike në Kosovë dhe të sanksionojnë Serbinë”, tha kryeministri në detyrë i Kosovës, Albin Kurti — AA.
The Conspiracy Against Kosovo’s Justice System Unraveled
In response to manipulated attacks, we’re granting free access to our latest investigative report, ensuring every reader sees the unfiltered truth. — The GPC I Unit.
Inside the Plot to Dismantle Kosovo’s War Crimes Tribunal
How a simple Facebook bribe unravelled into a scandal, unveiling a clandestine effort to sabotage Kosovo’s Special Chambers and destabilise a nation.
MIlaim Zeka’s Facebook Post saying: ”Ky eshte raporti qe e ka fundosur Jack Smithin. Per keta koleget e mi, e “dostate” e Grenellit, po ju tregoje se roli im, edhe i koleges time, Edlira Qefalise, me ndihmen absolute te Halit Sahitajt, e kemi çmontuar veprimtarine kriminale dhe korruptive te Jack Smithit, gjate kohes qe ishte kryeprokuror ne Hage. Situata ka pesuar ndryshime rrenjesore kur kam arritur ta binde Halit Sahitajn dhe malazesin Darko, se Faik Imeri nuk ishte agjent as i CIA-as, as i agjencive tjera te spiunazhit amerikan, perpos nje agjent i trajnuar nga BIA serbe, i cili kishte detyre te gjente sa me shume deshmitar te rrejshem, te falsifikonte dokumenta me qellim te komprimitimit te figurave te ndryshme kombetare.” — Facebook Post.
[PDF File of the Original Post - 10 November, 2024]
Mic Check: Ethics Off in Kosovo
A journalist ambushed live on air, silenced mid-defence, and smeared with lies, this wasn’t journalism, it was a staged execution of truth. — The GPC Media Watch.
Prosecution: Sheholli, on instructions from the BIA, collected and published information in the media — KOHA.
Ekskluzive- Pas arrestimit të Fatmir Shehollit, policia ndalon edhe Milaim Zekën, i cili ishte në takim me të — Kosova News.