Powerful Kosovo Serb Businessman Accused of Threatening Politician

A witness at the trial for the 2018 killing of Kosovo Serb political party leader Oliver Ivanovic told Pristina Basic Court on Monday that he lived in constant fear for his life for years because of threats from people linked to the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb political party Srpska Lista.

"I kept a bulletproof vest from 2017 until the end of 2020," said Aleksander Jablanovic, a politician who is now leader of the Kosovo Serbs Party (Partija Kosovskih Srba) and was Kosovo's Minister of Communities and Returns from late 2014 to early 2015.

Jablanovic testified that he was a co-founder of Srpska Lista, but after leaving to join the Kosovo Serbs Party and becoming a rival at the 2017 elections, he was seen as an "enemy of the [Serbian] state".

He claimed that because of the threats he received, his family home "has been secured by Kosovo police forces for a long time", and that he does not go out alone, especially at night.

He told the court the threats were made by individuals close to Srpska Lista and the man he described as "the real leader" of the party, powerful Kosovo Serb businessman Milan Radoicic.

Radojicic is vice-president of Srpska Lista. The indictment in the Ivanovic case accused him of being the leader of the criminal organised group that organised the murder in January 2018, together with another Kosovo Serb businessman, Zvonko Veselinovic. They have both denied any involvement and neither man is on trial.

Jablanovic claimed that he was summoned to meet Radoicic in 2015 at a restaurant in the town of Leposavic. Radojicic was accompanied by "men with beards" who Jablanovic alleged were part of a criminal group that protected the businessman.

"With a gun, he [Radojicic] told me: 'Brother, you are playing...