Kosovo Court Confirms Indictment in Oliver Ivanovic Murder Case

The Court of Appeals in Pristina on Tuesday confirmed the third version of the indictment accusing six people of being part of an alleged organised criminal group that was responsible for the killing of Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic in January 2018, clearing the way for the start of the trial.

The court decided that defendants Marko Rosic, Silvana Arsovic, Rade Basara, and Nedeljko Spasojevic should be tried as members of a joint criminal enterprise that murdered Ivanovic.

Two police officers, Dragisa Markovic and Zarko Jovanovic, are accused of tampering evidence in the case.

The Court of Appeals said in its ruling that Pristina Basic Court "has given sufficient reasons" that the indictment "contains sufficient evidence to support a well-founded suspicion that the accused are involved in the criminal offences with which they are charged".

All the defendants pleaded not guilty at the initial trial hearing in February 2021.

The alleged leaders of the organised criminal group are Milan Radojicic and Zvonko Veselinovic. Radoicic, the vice-president of the main Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb political party, Srpska Lista, is a businessman who is widely seen as the real power-holder in Serb-majority northern Kosovo. He has denied involvement in Ivanovic's murder.

Once seen as a hardline nationalist, Ivanovic had evolved into a political moderate who advocated coexistence between Kosovo's Serb minority and Albanian majority.

He had also become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Belgrade government.

At the time of his death, he was being retried for ordering the murder of Kosovo Albanians during the war in Kosovo in 1999. He pleaded not guilty.