Mehmetaj will appeal the conviction for war crimes by the Serbian court

The citizen of Kosovo, Nezir Mehmetaj, was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Serbia to six years in prison, on charges of war crimes against the civilian population in the village of Rudica in Klina in 1999. His defense team has warned that they will appeal this decision.

The Supreme Court of Serbia said that it has established that Mehmetaj in June 1999 had participated in the kidnapping of the civilian with Roma nationality, Jelaj Ramadan, whose mortal remains have not yet been found.

According to the claims of the court, along with Mehmetaj were also other members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

In the court's decision, it was also said that Mehmetaj was a member of the KLA and at that time he was moving in the village of Rudicë wearing a KLA uniform.

Nezir Mehmetaj's family has rejected the accusations against him.

Agron Mehmetaj, Nezir's brother, told him Radio Free Europe that the family does not feel "good at all", because they know that he is being held "unjustly and without any facts" in the Serbian prison.

"Everyone knows that he is innocent, but we have nothing to do," said Agron Mehmetaj.

Agroni emphasized that the last time a family member visited Nezir was his son, two months ago.

"It's been five years now, how can he be, even before he went to prison he had diabetes. He has not been in good health. How can it be? Like in prison", he added.

For this case, the Supreme Court said that there were six witnesses, two of whom were present in the village of Rudica at that time.

In the indictment against Mehmetaj, it was stated that in mid-June 1999, he had participated in the murder of five members of the Dashic family, and at the end of June, he had participated in the murder of Jelaj Ramadani and Zorka Shijakovic.

The High Court of Belgrade said that his participation in the murder of family members Dashic and Zorka Shijaković has not been proven, and it has not been proven that Mehmetaj, in July 1999, participated in the looting and burning of ten houses in the village that belonged to non-Albanians.

Read too Serbia sentences Nezir Mehmetaj to 6 years in prison

Nezir Mehmetaj's lawyer, Miliq Konstantinovic, said that he will appeal the decision, since, according to him, the court has no relevant evidence for any point of the indictment.

He said that the court did not accept the evidence presented by the defense, which, according to him, shows that Mehmetaj was not at all in Rudica at the time mentioned in the indictment, but was in Switzerland.

It seems clear that the court based its decision on the testimony of a protected witness, who gave a very controversial statement to the Prosecutor's Office. It is about a person who was 14 years old at the time of these events," Konstantinovic said.

He added that during the trial, the defense emphasized that Mehmetaj cannot be held responsible for the actions that took place after June 1999, when the war ended.

On June 9, 1999, the Kumanovo Agreement was signed, which ended the bombing of what was then Yugoslavia. After that, the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Police left Kosovo and NATO troops entered Kosovo.

In its decision, the court said that the factual situation in the village of Rudicë was such that the armed conflict was still continuing and that "the withdrawal of the forces of the former Yugoslavia was being exploited."

In the sentence pronounced by the first instance of the judiciary on December 6, Mehmetaj will be credited with the time spent in custody.

The speaker of the Kosovo Assembly, Glauk Konjufca, condemned Mehmetaj's sentence, who asked the international community to "increase the pressure on Serbia, with a clear voice against this injustice and in support of human rights".

He described the case against Mehmetaj as "invented and arbitrary".

Nezir Mehmetaj was arrested on January 3, 2020 at the border crossing in Merdarë and has been detained since then.

That same year, the Serbian judicial authorities indicted him for war crimes in Rudica, Klina Municipality, in the period June-July 1999.

The Kosovo authorities have repeatedly requested the release of Mehmetaj and several other citizens of Kosovo, who have been arrested by Serbia under suspicion of war crimes.

The Ministry of Justice of Kosovo in July 2024 asked Serbia to extradite to Kosovo the Kosovar citizens held there.

However, the leader of this ministry, Albulena Haxhiu, stated that it is difficult for Serbia to respond positively to this request, due to the ongoing legal non-cooperation.

Apart from Mehmetaj, Hasan Dakaj and Tefik Mustafa are also in custody in Serbia under charges of war crimes. Meanwhile, Sadiku Duraku, who was arrested on April 17 under suspicion of war crimes, was released in October of this year.

The US Department of State has called for a fair legal process for the persons arrested in Serbia on charges of war crimes.

The work of the Serbian Prosecutor's Office has been criticized in the past.

According to the Fund for Humanitarian Law in Serbia, the lack of transparency and the lack of information – which should be publicly accessible – have excluded the public from these processes.

The lack of witnesses was also mentioned in the last report of this organization. According to him, the Prosecution has not been able to provide any key witness for more than two years in war crimes cases.

In the Progress Report for Serbia, for 2023, the European Commission has mentioned that "the pace of war crimes trials in Serbia has worsened in recent years" and that real commitment must be shown to solve the cases.