Kosovo Serb Politician Ivanovic Threatened Before Murder, Court Told

Three years after the initial indictment for the murder of Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, the first witness was heard in the trial at Pristina Basic Court on Monday.

Ksenija Bozovic, the vice-president of Ivanovic's Freedom, Democracy, Justice party at the time of his death in January 2018, testified that he had said publicly that he was being threatened, particularly during the 2017 municipal elections in Kosovo, when he was a candidate for mayor of the Serb-dominated North Mitrovica municipality.

"Ivanovic declared his fear for his safety to the Albanian and Serbian media as well as to [NATO's Kosovo force] KFOR, [EU rule-of-law mission] EULEX and foreign embassies," she told the court.

Bozovic, who said she knew Ivanovic for 20 years, listed several occasions on which he was targeted, including incidents in which his car was burned and his house broken into. She also accused police of not acting professionally in the murder case.

The witness said she did not recognise any of the accused who were present in court, except for Silvana Arsovic, with whom she worked while Arsovic was Ivanovic's assistant.

Four of the defendants - Marko Rosic, Silvana Arsovic, Rade Basara, and Nedeljko Spasojevic - are accused of being members of a joint criminal enterprise that murdered Ivanovic outside his political party's office in the city of Mitrovica in January 2018.

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

All of them have pleaded not guilty.

Defendant Basara's lawyer, Tome Gashi, told media that "the witness has so far not said anything concrete about the persons involved, she has expressed her concern about the...