Filipovic: No new evidence in retrial, we will appeal the verdict against Lutvija

Defense attorney for Sacir Lutvija, Jovana Filipovic, announced that she will appeal the first-instance verdict in which Sacir Lutvija was again sentenced to 10 years in prison, stating that no new evidence was presented in the retrial and that all defense proposals were rejected.

Filipovic recalled that Lutvija had previously been sentenced to ten years in prison, after which the defense appealed to the Court of Appeals, which, she said, fully accepted the arguments presented in the appeal and instructed the first-instance court to re-examine all relevant facts concerning the defendant’s guilt in the retrial.

“In this retrial, we had a situation where the court did not present a single new piece of evidence, while all defense proposals were rejected because the court considered them unnecessary. In the retrial, without a single new piece of evidence, despite the legal restrictions and despite the guidance of the Court of Appeals, the court once again reached a decision sentencing him to ten years in prison,” Filipovic said.

She announced that the defense would appeal the new verdict as well and expressed the expectation that the Court of Appeals, as in the previous case, would make a fair decision.

“That it will base its decision on the law and that this time, unlike before, it will simply issue a verdict that is truly in accordance with the law, rather than with such rules that the first-instance court considers accepted, in the sense that this is not an individual, isolated case, where after a retrial the verdict against the accused persons is identical at the second-instance level as well,” Filipovic stated.

The Basic Court in Pristina today, in a retrial, sentenced former member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia Sacir Lutvija to ten years in prison for the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population.

The time he spent in detention was credited toward his sentence. Both sides have the right to appeal the court’s decision.

On November 11 last year, the Basic Court in Pristina initially sentenced former member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia Sacir Lutvija to ten years in prison for the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population.

The Court of Appeals overturned that verdict on June 23 and returned the case for a retrial, explaining that the first-instance decision contained substantial violations of criminal procedure and insufficient reasoning regarding key facts.

Sacir Lutvija has been in detention since October 2023, and the indictment accuses him of violating international law and committing war crimes against the civilian population in Prizren between 1998 and 1999.