Serbs in prisons in Kosovo: Justice in the service of politics?

This year New Year and Christmas holidays will be spent in Kosovo prisons by 28 Serbs, eight of whom have been convicted. According to the data of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, the trend of arrests and political persecution of Serbs in Kosovo is increasing, and the number of arrests of Serbs has increased noticeably since March 2021, when Albin Kurti took over as Prime Minister of Kosovo.

As a New Year's "congratulations", before the New Year, the Deputy Director of the Regional Police Department in North Mitrovica, Veton Elshani, announced that a total of 165 warrants have been issued in this part of Kosovo since 1999, of which 111 people are wanted for various crimes. 76 are of Serbian nationality.

"Like everywhere in Kosovo, every region has people who are wanted. We have 111 people, who are wanted in the entire north of Kosovo, from 1999 until now. Warrants were issued for smuggling, theft, murder... It could be that one of them has two or three warrants, that's why the number has grown to 165 warrants, but the number of wanted people is 111. This is not unusual. Pec, for example, has more than 630 warrants," Elshani told Kosovo Online .

Assistant Director of the Office for Kosovo and Kosovo Igor Popovic points out for Kosovo Online that the trend of arrests and political persecution of Serbs in Kosovo is increasing, and this government institution is doing everything to help all those arrested, including providing legal assistance. According to him, the New Year and Christmas holidays will be spent in prisons in Kosovo by 21 Serbs against whom politically motivated court proceedings are being conducted and seven more who have been legally convicted before the courts of local self-governments in Kosovo and are already serving a prison sentence.

"According to our data, there are 21 people in custody for politically motivated arrests. Unfortunately, we also have seven people who have already been sentenced before the courts of temporary institutions of self-government. We also have five people who were released after serving their sentences and 16 people who were detained and are defending themselves from freedom. These are our data for the persons who were arrested, precisely for some political reasons," said Popovic.

It indicates that the number of arrests of Serbs has noticeably increased since March 2021, when Albin Kurti took over as Prime Minister of Kosovo. Tendencies of arrests and political persecutions, as he says, only grow over time.

"We have constant arrests, we have politically motivated persecutions, Pristina is constantly putting pressure on their judiciary to keep people in custody all the time. We have a large number of persons who, unfortunately, have been arrested for alleged war crimes. They have this tendency to think that all Serbs are war criminals, that Albanians suffered some kind of genocide, so they arrest people who have lived there for years or visited their properties as displaced persons. Based on the statements of false witnesses, they are being held in custody, they are exposed to great pressure and in the Albanian public they are treated as alleged criminals, even though they are essentially political prisoners," said Popovic.

According to him, displaced Serbs south of the Ibar River are arrested when visiting their former homes, while in the north the arrests are mainly due to expressions of dissatisfaction due to the usurpation of municipalities by Albanians.

"People south of the Ibar River are arrested while visiting the areas from where the Serbs were expelled, and there is also a great tendency to arrest people in the north because they express political protests against the usurpation of their local governments due to the arrival of the so-called Albanian mayors who were elected with less than a percentage of the Albanian population. They were simply defending their local governments and now these people are simply being treated as some kind of terrorists, even though they were only expressing their legitimate rights, human rights and rights to freedom of movement," he explains.

Speaking about the measures taken by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija in order to protect Serbian prisoners in Kosovo, Popovic emphasized that efforts are being made to immediately provide every arrested person with a lawyer who will defend him during the entire procedure.

Defense costs, he adds, are borne by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

Also, he emphasized, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija is in constant communication with representatives of the international community in order to provide prisoners with humane treatment in prisons and the right to prove that they are innocent.

"First of all, we are trying to provide these people with an adequate professional background, to hire lawyers, experts who will represent and defend them in all stages of the procedure, from the moment of detention to bringing them to court, and to finance all defense costs. Also, the Office tries to animate the international missions, EULEX, UNMIK, OSCE, EU, to constantly remind them through written and oral address that these people were arrested for political reasons, that they are innocent people in prisons, that it is necessary to prevent their mistreatment, to enable them to be released from detention and to defend themselves from freedom or to be definitively released and not to be mistreated in detention, but to have adequate health conditions. Simply, so that they are not left at the mercy of Kurti's regime," Popovic pointed out.

Popovic says that the international community does not respond satisfactorily to the appeals of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

"We are getting a response from the international community. Unfortunately, from the international community, especially EULEX, which at one point had an executive function in the judiciary of temporary institutions of self-government, we receive mostly typical answers, namely that an independent judiciary, regular court proceedings are needed... They claim that as a mission they have the ability to monitor, they will supervise, but that they cannot interfere in the so-called Kosovo judiciary. It's really nonsense, there is no independent Kosovo judiciary," said Popovic.

The assistant director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija points out that it is a matter of personal political persecution by Albin Kurti and his regime and assesses that Pristina is also abusing the UNMIK mission, using it to arrest Serbs throughout the region.

"Pristina does not have the possibility to appear before Interpol, and it happens that the warrants it issues are published through UNMIC and reach Interpol, so that our people are arrested in Montenegro on the basis of some warrants from Pristina. We had a case of two people who were arrested in Montenegro in September of this year, fortunately those people were released, but unfortunately such things happen because of the actions of UNMIK," said Popovic.

Lawyers who are in daily contact with arrested Serbs point out that the most difficult thing for these people is the separation from their families and the fact that they often do not know what they are accused of.

Lawyer Dejan Vasic is currently representing seven Serbs who are in the custody of the Special Department of the Special Court in Pristina, i.e. in the prison in Podujevo, before the Kosovo courts.

All of them are accused of the crime of "war crime", which is why the lawyers, as Vasic told for Kosovo Online, have organized legal teams to defend them.

"We have taken it upon ourselves to provide these people with legal teams that will defend them. There was simply too much pressure on individuals to represent and defend these complex cases. "Approximately, seven of them who are now in custody are mostly charged with war crimes," says Vasic.

He explains that it is ungrateful to say which of the detained Serbs has it the most difficult because each of them is facing serious problems, and the most difficult thing for them is that many in prison are innocent and have no contact with their families.

At the same time, he reminded that families are in an equally difficult psychological situation because they do not have adequate information about what is happening to their family members who are in prison.

Vasic apostrophizes that Sladjan Trajkovic is in a very serious state of health, Gavrilo Milosavljevic's family has not been able to visit for a long time, and that Zarko Zaric's family expected him to be released and celebrate the New Year with them in the village of Ljubozdra, where, as Vasic points out, he celebrated all these years with his Albanian neighbors.

"Dragisa Milenkovic is practically 15 kilometers from his house, neither guilty nor liable in custody. Only their souls know what it is like for those people," said Vasic.

Speaking about the legal order in Kosovo, our interlocutor points out that the state and the law have always been the exclusive and only force.

"Sometimes this force is exercised through formal procedures, and sometimes through procedures that do not care about formalities. Now, not only Kosovo, but the whole world has reached that stage where it no longer cares about any formalities, law, international norms. I don't think anyone is cares of anybody and that now it is normal to wage wars, bomb and kill civilians, and other things that suggest that basically the legal order and system is threatened to such an extent that it almost doesn't exist," he said.

Lawyer Ljubomir Pantovic, who is one of the defenders of the arrested Kosovo Serbs, tells Kosovo Online that being in prison is difficult in itself, especially when it comes to Serbs in Kosovo prisons who have no faith and hope in the future and do not trust the judiciary that judges them.

"Quite often I visit my defendants in custody and even those who are on probation, there are some of them. One day in prison is as long as a year, and you can imagine with what desire they expect their defense attorney to talk to him, ask if there is anything new, what is happening with the case and is there any hope for them. Simply, they are in a difficult situation, in custody, completely deprived of their freedom. They have visits from family members twice a month. Defense attorneys can visit their detainees indefinitely, only for the first visit he gets permission from the court, and later we can visit them every day. These are people who are desperate, have no faith and hope for the future. Of course, they don't trust the judiciary that judges them either, but you are there as a defense attorney to encourage them, to you instill some self-confidence in them. I think I'm quite successful in that. It's hard to be in any prison, and especially here," Pantovic points out.

He cites the long period of investigation until the indictment as a key problem.

"First of all, the law itself is such that investigations for serious criminal offenses can last up to 12 months until an indictment is filed. That is quite a long period. For serious criminal offenses that are legally and factually more complex and extensive, that investigation can be extended even more in six months. It means that the investigation, criminal proceedings until the indictment is filed can last up to a year and a half, which is a very long period, but unfortunately that is the legal solution. One day in prison is a lot, not 12 months. One "My colleague recently told the media that when it comes to serious crimes and crimes with an inter-ethnic character, only those who are uninformed or who have a distorted idea of the reality here believe in justice in Kosovo," says Pantovic.

Speaking about the state and mood of the Serbs in detention against whom charges have not yet been brought, Pantovic says that he often visits them and tries to raise their morale.

But he points out that in addition to the imprisoned Serbs, these Christmas and New Year's holidays are also hard on their families.

Our interlocutor points out that he tries to always be at their disposal and help at all times.

"Just as your client expects from you some encouragement and news, hope, the same applies to their family members, and they are of course interested in what will happen and what the predictions are. You really have to talk to them at all times and be there for them, ready to encourage them, and of course to convey to them what is happening in each case and with their family member who is in prison. That segment of their work is not negligible, we have to be in constant contact both with the defendants who are deprived of their liberty and with to family members," said Pantovic.