![](\"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gjykimi-masakra-recak.jpg\")
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(Radio Free Europe) – A trial in absentia started on Friday in the Prishtina Court against 21 people accused of the Re\u00e7ak Massacre – an event that helped prompt international intervention to end it. of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors accuse them of killing 42 civilians in Re\u00e7ak of Shtime during an operation by the Serbian police forces during the 1998-\u00e2\u20ac\u00a699 war.<\/p>\n
defendants \u2013 Obrad Stevanovi\u0107, Radomir Markovi\u0107, Krsman Jeli\u0107, Goran Radosavljevi\u0107, \u017divko Trajkovi\u0107, Bogoljub Jani\u0107evi\u0107, Milan Le\u00c3\u00a7i\u0107, Radomir Miti\u0107, Dragan Gjorgovi\u0107, Branko Mladenovi\u0107, Dragan Jasovi\u0107, Momqilo Sparavalo, Darko Amanovi\u0107, Srboljub Vujnovi\u0107, Bozhidar Marinkovi\u0107, Zoran Stanojevi\u0107, Milan Josanovi\u0107, Goran Petkovi\u0107, Dragoslav Nikolic, Edomir Aksiq and Zvonimir Janiqijevi\u0107 – are accused of committing war crimes against the civilian population.<\/p>\n
They are accused of murder, torture and inhumane treatment of the civilian population, destruction of civilian property and harm to the population. Civilian.<\/p>\n
According to the indictment, during the years 1998-1999, in the village of Re\u00c3\u00a7ak, they acted intentionally, jointly, individually and in the framework of command responsibility, as members of the Army. ex-Yugoslavia”.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor’s office requested that the trial against them take place in absentia, saying that they are inaccessible to the justice bodies of Kosovo.<\/p>\n
In the introductory speech, prosecutor Ilir Morina said that the trial should take place in absence, after all the conditions have been met. The request was accepted by the judge Violeta Namani-Hajra.<\/p>\n
The judge emphasized that all legal actions have been taken to notify the accused and that, according to the information, they are in Serbia.<\/p>\n
The summons, the arrest warrant, the search for the defendant’s address in Kosovo and the international arrest warrant are the legal conditions that must be fulfilled before the indictment can be filed in absentia. In 2021, a summons was sent to all the defendants through international legal aid, but no response was received.<\/p>\n
One year later, at the request of the prosecution, the court issued arrest warrants against them.<\/p>\n
According to Morin, from the report of police results show that none of the defendants were found at the addresses where they lived in Kosovo before the war, nor at any other address within the country. After the issuance of arrest warrants in Kosovo, international arrest warrants were also issued.<\/p>\n
The trial against them was supposed to start on July 20, but the Basic Court in Pristina postponed it to Friday in the absence of legal conditions.<\/p>\n
Ram\u00c3\u00ab Shabani, a 60-year-old who survived the Re\u00e7ak Massacre, told Radio Free Europe before the start of the trial that – even if the guilt of the accused is proven and they are sentenced – justice will not be served. verdict of justice. But, this cannot bring justice. Those 21 people, whose names have been mentioned, did not enter Kosovo anymore and we [Kosovo authorities] will never be able to catch them… Without them being in the dock, you can’t do anything, he said. him.<\/p>\n
Judgment in absentia is possible in Kosovo after changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure, made in 2022.<\/p>\n
However, such judgments can only be made on the condition that the prosecution and the court have exhausted all means. to ensure the presence of the accused.<\/p>\n
However, this Code determines that persons judged in absentia have the right to an unconditional retrial, if they are arrested later.<\/p>\n
However, this judicial process is not the only development related to Re\u00c3\u00a7ak massacre.<\/p>\n
On June 12, during a joint operation of the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the Kosovo Police, as part of the war crimes investigation in the case known as Re\u00c3\u00a7ak II, five were arrested. persons.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor’s office announced that those arrested are of Serbian nationality. Therefore, the police failed to arrest the sixth person, who was not found at his residence.<\/p>\n
Those arrested are suspected to have been part of the special units of the Serbian police that took part in the January operation in Re\u00e7ak.<\/p>\n
Documentation of crimes committed William Walker, who in 1999 had served as head of the Verification Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), had done it in Re\u00e7ak.<\/p>\n
This massacre caused a strong international reaction and increased the pressure on the regime in Serbia, what happened in the talks between the representatives of the Albanians of Kosovo and the authorities of Serbia, through international mediation, at the Rambouillet Conference in France.<\/p>\n
The failure to reach an agreement prompted NATO to bombard military and police targets of the former Yugoslavia for 78 days”.<\/p>\n
Then, international forces entered Kosovo and the Serbian forces and administration left the country.<\/p>\n
The Institute of War Crimes in Kosovo has documented 12,230 victims of war of 1998-’99.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the year, the Special Prosecutor’s Office filed indictments in absentia against 21 suspects for the forced deportation of over 800,000 Albanian civilians from Kosovo during that war. \/REL<\/p>\n
Source: prizrenpost<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Radio Free Europe) – A trial in absentia started on Friday in the Prishtina Court against 21 people accused of the Re\u00e7ak Massacre – an event that helped prompt international intervention to end it. of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo. Prosecutors accuse them of killing 42 civilians in Re\u00e7ak of Shtime during an operation by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-17"],"views":23,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45329,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45327\/revisions\/45329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}