Oliver Ivanovic

Serbia is asking that Oliver Ivanovic is set free "instantly and completely," Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director Marko Djuric said on Wednesday.

In a statement for Tanjug, Djuric described the Serb politician from northern Kosovo as "the last political prisoner in Europe."

Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, who is awaiting retrial for alleged war crimes, was released from detention but placed under house arrest for two months.

The head of the Serbian government’s Kosovo office said a Pristina court’s decision to send Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic for retrial for alleged war crimes was unjust.

The case of Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, convicted of war crimes for ordering the murder of ethnic Albanians in Mitrovica in 1999, has been sent for retrial.

The Appeals Court in Pristina has decided to annul the guilty verdict passed against Oliver Ivanovic and order a trial, B92's correspondent reported Thursday.

Ivanovic's lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic has confirmed the news for Tanjug.

Marko Djuric says he expects the Appellate Court to urgently uphold the arguments of the defense and release of Oliver Ivanovic.

The director of the Serbian Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija was speaking on the occasion of the third anniversary of the arrest of the Serb politician from Kosovo, the leader of the Civic Initiative SDP.

Artan Demhasaj, director of the Pristina-based NGO Cohu, said the increasingly routine decision of courts to close high-profile corruption trials to the public gaze will undermine faith in Kosovo in the justice system.

"While the courts are constantly closing such sensitive cases, it is causing a deterioration of the situation in terms of transparency," Demhasaj told BIRN.

Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, jailed for nine years for war crimes, told Pristina’s appeals court that his trial was unlawful because he had already been investigated over the same offence.

Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic, convicted of war crimes for ordering the murder of ethnic Albanians in Mitrovica in April 1999, launched an appeal against his nine-year sentence.

BELGRADE - The Serbian government sees the trial of Citizens' Initiative SDP leader Oliver Ivanovic as a "political trial par excellence" and will demand from the international community that he be immediately released pending a verdict, the head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Marko Djuric said on Friday.