Kosovo Police Hunt Two New Suspects in Ivanovic Murder

Police investigating the 2018 murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic called on Thursday for information on the identity of two new suspects, releasing images of them in front of the party office where Ivanovic was shot dead.

Ivanovic, once seen as a nationalist but who evolved into a moderate voice among Kosovo Serb leaders and a critic of Belgrade, was gunned down in January 2018 in North Mitrovica, a stronghold of ethnic Serbs in the north of majority-Albanian Kosovo.

Police in Kosovo last month arrested two men on suspicion of involvement, one of them a Serb police officer within the Kosovo police force accused of hiding evidence in the case.

North Mitrovica police commander Zeljko Bojic is also wanted for arrest but remains at large; authorities have also named the deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party Srpska Lista, Milan Radoicic, as a suspect, but he in Serbia, beyond the reach of Kosovo police.

On Thursday, police working with Kosovo's Directorate for Investigation of Serious Crimes received the green light from the Special Prosecution to publish photos of the two new suspects.

"The publication of these photos is aimed at identifying citizens who can help us identify the suspects," police said in a statement.

The images capture the suspects on Lola Ribar Street in North Mitrovica, in front of the office where Ivanovic was killed.

At the time of his death, Ivanovic was being retried for ordering the murder of Kosovo Albanians during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, charges he denied.