Lawyer Vasic submitted a request to the Supreme Court for an extraordinary reduction of Bacevic's sentence

Lawyer Dejan A. Vasic has submitted a request to the Supreme Court of Kosovo for an extraordinary sentence reduction on behalf of his client, Svetomir Bacevic, who was convicted by the Basic Court in Pristina for an alleged war crime against the civilian population.

Bacevic's health has deteriorated in recent days, as Vasic confirmed for Kosovo Online.

"In the request, I have stated the fact that Bacevic has already served half of his sentence and that his health is so compromised that there is a real danger of serious consequences. I am certain that this fact will be confirmed by the doctor who examined my client at the Clinical Hospital Center in Pristina," Vasic said.

He further added that any decision rejecting this request could result in a fatal deterioration of Bacevic's health.

Over the weekend, Vasic issued a public plea, at the request of Bacevic's family, for his transfer from the prison in Podujevo to receive medical treatment in Pristina, to which, according to him, there has been no response yet.

"Today, I will visit the detention center in Podujevo and will have more up-to-date information. I hope this will provide some relief to his desperate family, primarily because they have no information about his condition," Vasic said.

To recall, Svetomir Bacevic was arrested in December 2020 and sentenced to five years in prison in September 2022 for alleged war crimes against the civilian population in the village of Belo Polje, near Pec.

He was suspected of attempting to kidnap his neighbor from Belo Polje, and despite the woman testifying in court that she does not know Bacevic and that he is not the person mentioned in the indictment, he was still found guilty.