Attorney Vasic: Scandalous behavior of the Prosecutor's Office, Trajkovic was remanded in custody before the hearing

Attorney Dejan Vasic, the defense counsel for Sladjan Trajkovic, whose trial began today at the Basic Court in Pristina, made numerous accusations against the Court and the Prosecutor's Office, stating that the Court allowed itself to be reduced to "a mere scribe of the Special Prosecutor's Office in Pristina."

"This is the most scandalous behavior of the prosecution that I have seen in my 16 years of work and over 10 defenses in war crimes cases. From the case file, we only received what the prosecutor wanted us to have," Vasic said in court.

He added that Trajkovic had been remanded into custody before being questioned.

"How are we supposed to plead? This man has been in detention for seven months. I have written to the Special Prosecutor's Office five times to allow us to participate in the investigation, while the police have questioned 30 witnesses and the prosecutor has questioned eight. They have never called us to inform us of the charges against Trajkovic," Vasic emphasized.

Vasic requested the court to set bail for Trajkovic to be released under house arrest due to his health condition, but the Prosecution objected to that request.

Sladjan Trajkovic, together with other colleagues, resigned from the Kosovo Police in early November last year as a protest against the violence carried out by the authorities in Pristina against Serbs in the north.

Trajkovic was arrested on December 15 of last year in the Bosniak Mahala in North Mitrovica and has been in detention ever since.

The Specialist Prosecutor's Office of Kosovo has filed an indictment against the defendant, Sladjan Trajkovic, for war crimes against the civilian population in the village of Reznik in the municipality of Vucitrn and surrounding villages during the period from 1998 to 1999.