Six Plead Not Guilty to Kosovo Serb Politician Ivanovic’s Murder

Six suspects accused of involvement in the murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the Freedom, Democracy, Justice party, was gunned down outside his office in January 2018, pleaded not guilty at Pristina Basic Court on Friday.

Nedeljko Spasojevic, Dragisa Markovic, Zarko Jovanovic, Rade Basara, Marko Rosic and Silvana Arsovic are charged with participating in or organising a criminal group, misuse of office, assisting in a murder, possession of illegal weapons, disclosure of official secrets and misuse of evidence in relation to the Ivanovic case.

Basara, who is also suspected of tampering with evidence, gave the court an alibi claiming he was in Croatia on January 16, 2018, the day of the murder.

Spasojevic and Janovic pleaded guilty to the illegal possession of weapons.

Meanwhile Basara's lawyer, Tome Gashi, told media after the hearing that the rights of the defendants are being violated because they have been in detention for 16 months.

The prosecution has not yet published any evidence against the two men accused of heading the alleged organised criminal group responsible for Ivanovic's death, Serbian businessmen Milan Radoicic and Zvonko Veselinovic.

Ivanovic, who was once seen as a hardline nationalist, had evolved into a political moderate who advocated coexistence between Kosovo's Serb minority and ethnic Albanian majority.

He had also become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Belgrade government.

At the time of his death, he was being retried for ordering the murder of Kosovo Albanians during the war in Kosovo in 1999. He had pleaded not guilty.