Oliver Ivanovic Indicted For War Crimes in Kosovo

Oliver Ivanovic, a former Serbian government official and head of the Citizens Initiative Freedom, Democracy, Justice has been indicted for war crimes in Kosovo.

The Office of the Kosovo Special Prosecutor raised an indictment against five people on Monday.

Although the names of the accused have not been revealed, BIRN has learned that Ivanovic is accused of inciting war crimes in April 1999 and, along with one other person, of inciting an accessory to murder in February 2000.

The remaining three indictees are accused of aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder in February 2000.

Ivanovic was arrested in January on suspicion of involvement in war crimes against ethnic Albanians, and in murders committed after the Kosovo conflict of the late 1990s ended.

He was a so-called "Bridge Watcher" at the time when the alleged offences occurred. These were Serb militants who patrolled the main bridge in the northern town of Mitrovica, dividing the town into Serbian and Albanian sectors.

After his arrest, the Serbian government issued guarantees that if Ivanović was released from detention pending trial, it would ensure that he was made available to the court. He has not been released in spite of the guarantees, however.

After he went on hunger strike in March, the authorities transferred him from prison in Pristina, where he said his safety was jeopardized, to a jail in northern Kosovo, which is mainly populated by Serbs.