From 4 to 10 years in prison. These are the sentences that four Serbs, including three police officers, received on Friday in Pristina. These people were convicted on Friday for complicity in the 2018 murder of a Kosovo Serb politician, Oliver Ivanovic, slayer of organized crime and critical voice of Belgrade. “We believe that this murder was committed for political reasons by a group led by Milan Radoicic, with the intention of taking control” in the predominantly Serb areas of Kosovo, prosecutors wrote in the indictment which was adopted by the Court, the judge indicated when announcing the verdict.
Marko Rosic, a bodyguard, received the harshest sentence, 10 years in prison, while the three police officers received lighter sentences. Two others were acquitted. The court followed the prosecutor’s arguments and found them guilty of “acting as a structured criminal group,” formed in 2011 and “led by Zvonko Veselinovic and Milan Radoicic, who are fugitives.”
Mr. Radoicic has long been considered the most influential Serbian politician in northern Kosovo, and close to the power in Belgrade. He has been targeted by American sanctions since 2021, suspected of organized crime and corruption. He fled to Serbia in the fall, and is suspected of leading a heavily armed Serbian commando that killed a Kosovar policeman in September.
Then 64, Oliver Ivanovic was shot six times in the back in January 2018 outside his party headquarters in Mitrovica, a town divided between Serbs and Albanians in northern Kosovo. One of the few Albanian speakers in his community, Ivanovic was also one of the few politicians to oppose Belgrade’s control over Kosovo’s Serb minority. Serbia refuses to recognize the independence that its former southern province, populated mainly by Albanians, proclaimed in 2008.
Ivanovic was a favored target of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s local political allies and violent pro-government media campaigns in Serbia. He also denounced the grip of crime on North Mitrovica, the Serbian part of the locality. Although he refused the independence of Kosovo, like almost all members of his community, he regularly denounced the role played there by Belgrade.
