Ksenija Bozovic

A witness at the trial for the 2018 killing of Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, told Pristina Basic Court on Wednesday that he wanted to change the testimony he previously gave to Kosovo's Special Prosecution.

The witness, who the judges asked media not to name for security reasons and to avoid witness-tampering, said he made the decision because he is afraid.

Ksenija Bozovic, who was the vice-president of Oliver Ivanovic's Freedom, Democracy, Justice party, declined on Tuesday to tell Pristina Basic Court the names of organised criminal groups which the slain politician warned her about before his murder in Mitrovica in Kosovo in January 2018.

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.

The family of the murdered Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic have asked the Kosovo Election Commission to forbid the main Kosovo Serb party, Srpska Lista, SL, from using his name in the October elections after a senior official of his party defected to the SL.

Ivanovic was a Serb politician from northern Kosovo who was gunned down in the street in northern Kosovska Mitrovica in January 2018.

Some Kosovo Serb representatives say that employees of institutions funded by Serbia in Kosovo are being pressured to attend a rally in support of President Aleksandar Vucic, and fear reprisals if they do not show up.

Kosovo politicians have complained of a lack of information about the draft statute for the proposed Association of Serbian Municipalities, which is designed to guarantee their autonomy in the mainly ethnic Albanian country.

Murdered Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic's lawyer and party colleagues say they are not being informed about the progress of the investigation by the authorities of either Kosovo and Serbia, while Belgrade and Pristina continue to accuse each other of obstructing progress in the case.

The leder of the GI SDP party, Oliver Ivanovic, died of his injuries on Tuesday, after he was shot in front of his office in Kosovska Mitrovica.

His lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic confirmed this for the website KoSSev.

According to the doctors, the Serb politician was shot five times in the chest before he was taken to a local hospital, where he died.

Oliver Ivanovic, an ethnic Serb political leader in northern Kosovo, has been shot dead in front of his office in the Serb-dominated northern part of the divided city of Mitrovica.

Ivanovic's lawyer, Nebojsa Vlajic, told RFE/RL that Ivanovic died as a result of the shooting on the morning of January 16.