Petkovic: Killers of the Stolic family from Obilic have not been brought to justice even after 22 years

The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, reminded that on this day in 2003, the three-member Stolic family was murdered in their home in Obilic, and that the perpetrators of this monstrous crime have never been brought to justice.

Slobodan and Radmila Stolic, along with their son Ljubinko, were brutally tortured, and pathologists found multiple signs of torture on their bodies, even though the house where the murder occurred had been set on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime, Petkovic stated.

"As with other cases of murders of Serbs after the arrival of international forces in Kosovo and Metohija, the perpetrators were not identified, even though the motive for the crime is clear, to intimidate potential returnees, as well as the few remaining Serbs who were still living in Obilic at the time," Petkovic emphasized.

He stated that such a criminal pattern, sponsored by extremist and terrorist political structures in Pristina, reached its peak less than a year later during the March 2004 pogrom, and that the policy of an ethnically pure, self-proclaimed “Kosovo” remains the unofficial ruling ideology of Pristina’s separatists to this day.

"The methodical and brutally cold-hearted nature of the torture was not motivated by personal reasons or material gain, but was a symptom of deep and widespread hatred toward Serbs and a chauvinism that was not only tolerated, but also nurtured and encouraged by certain political structures. That ideology of hatred still lives on and persists in the political projections of Pristina, which has a clear goal: for Serbs to disappear from Kosovo and Metohija, as proven by the daily practices of Kurti’s regime in the north of the province," Petkovic asserted.

He stated that a healthy society cannot be built on hatred and unpunished crimes, and that there can be no multiethnic community while criminals walk freely, nor can there be stable and lasting peace and interethnic trust.

Therefore, Petkovic added, it is essential that crimes like the murder of the Stolic family are never forgotten, and that the policy of impunity is replaced with serious and sincere reckoning with the past.