29. jul 2026 18:25
Two Serbs arrested in Kosovo-Metohija placed in 30-day custody
Foto: Shutterstock.com/trabantos, ilustracija
PRISTINA - A basic court in Pristina placed two Serb men arrested in Zubin Potok, Kosovo-Metohija, on suspicion of allegedly committing a war crime against civilians in 1999 in 30-day custody on Wednesday.
Their defence announced it would appeal the decision, made by a preliminary proceedings judge.
Milos Delevic, the attorney of one of the arrestees, Momir Jaksic, said his client was charged with command responsibility and noted that the law on criminal proceedings had been misused severely by Pristina's police and prosecutors.
"Two hours after he was detained and brought to Pristina, I reported to the police station as his attorney. Believe it or not, they took statements from him twice without me being present - first as from a witness and then as from an accused. I guarantee that that does not happen anywhere in the world nowadays. I reported as his attorney but was banned from attending the questioning and from seeing him, while, for two days, he was banned from contacting his family, and they knew nothing about his whereabouts or about what was going on with him," Delevic said.
Dejan Vasic, the attorney of the other arrestee, Miljko Bisevac, noted that the two were not suspected of killing ethnic Albanian civilians during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo-Metohija.
"What I want to tell the Kosovo public is that these two men are not suspected of killing those people. At the time, one of the suspects was a Yugoslav Army reservist, while my client was an ordinary army reservist, and he is accused of burying people who were killed. This is the first time I have heard that burying people who have been killed qualifies as a criminal offence," Vasic said.
The so-called Kosovo Police detained five Serb men in the Zubin Potok area on Monday, but three of them were released after questioning.
Earlier, a Pristina prosecutor's office said Bisevac and Jaksic were suspected of alleged involvement in the killing of 23 ethnic-Albanian civilians in the territory of Kosovska Mitrovica in April 1999.