The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) has decided to give up relying on the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) assistance in operational activities in northern Kosovo on suspicion that members of the KPS give suspects the information on investigations and planned actions, the Pristina-based daily Koha Ditore reports Thursday.

Unnamed sources form EULEX informed the daily about a number of cases in which the suspects in this part of Kosovo managed to learn that they were under a criminal investigation or that an action against them was being prepared, which made EULEX decide to engage members of the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) instead.

The latest such case took place on February 15, when one operation failed after the suspect, associated with several investigations into organized crime, managed to escape.

Every time we have collaborated with Kosovo's police there were leaks, a source from the mission told the daily.

That does not mean that we will never cooperate with the KPS, but we assessed that in sensitive cases, it is best we do the job ourselves, a senior EULEX official said.

During the EULEX' last action, when a Serb suspected of organized crime was arrested in Zubin Potok, a town in northern Kosovo, the support to the international police was provided by KFOR troops, rather than by the Kosovo police. The attempted arrest of the same person failed in February.