Filipovic: Trial of five Serbs from Kosovo Pomoravlje has made no progress for a year and a half

The trial of five Serbs from the Kosovo Pomoravlje region, accused of committing a war crime in the Gnjilane area in 1999, continued today before the Basic Court in Pristina with the examination of a psychiatric expert.

The defendants are Dragan Nicic, Slobodan Jevtic, Dragan Cvetkovic, and Milos Sosic, who were arrested by the Kosovo Police on August 3, 2024, in Pasjane near Gnjilane, as well as Nenad Stojanovic, who was arrested the same day in the village of Bosce near Kosovska Kamenica.

Stojanovic’s defense counsel, attorney Milos Nikolic, requested a new expert evaluation, arguing that his client is not mentally capable of understanding the criminal proceedings.

Counsel for Dragan Cvetkovic, attorney Jovana Filipovic, stated that the defense lawyers of the other detained Serbs supported Nikolic’s request for a new examination by an independent institution which, as she noted, they believe would provide credible rather than biased findings. However, the court rejected this request.

“We were informed that we will have the right to appeal, given that we are clearly dissatisfied with the court’s decision rendered today, and this will further lead to prolonging the proceedings. According to the psychiatrists and psychologists present in the courtroom today, his mental condition is within the limits of normality; however, they persistently refused to answer whether he would be responsible if he were to commit an act now, and whether he can bear responsibility in the criminal-law sense at all,” Filipovic explained to Kosovo Online.

She emphasized that, to date—one and a half years after the indictment was filed—the proceedings have not moved “from a dead standstill” in terms of proving or contesting the indictment, but are, according to her, conducted exclusively in line with the motions of the defense counsel for the accused Nenad Stojanovic.

“We are trying to demonstrate that Nenad Stojanovic is not capable of following these proceedings, as he was discharged from the army back in the 1980s. It was determined that he was unfit for any kind of work, and therefore also for military service; he was diagnosed with ‘debilitas mentis,’ which was the terminology used at the time. He is also prone to epileptic seizures and is currently receiving treatment for the same condition while in detention,” Filipovic said.

The Kosovo Special Prosecution charges the five Serbs with, as part of a criminal group and in cooperation with other unidentified members, participating—armed and wearing camouflage uniforms, as regular and irregular members of the Serbian police or military—in the killing of eight Albanian civilians.

Nicic, Jevtic, Cvetkovic, Sosic, and Stojanovic pleaded not guilty to the charges at the hearing held on January 15, 2025.

Of the five defendants, only Cvetkovic is currently under house arrest.