Kosovo Court Detains Former Prison Guards Suspected of War Crimes
The prison at Lipjan/Lipljan, where the suspects are accused of abusing inmates. Photo: BIRN
The Basic Court of Pristina on Wednesday said it had ordered 30 days of detention for three former prison guards suspected of war crimes during the Kosovo war of 1998-1999.
The Special Prosecutor’s document, seen by BIRN, said that Boban Tonic, a 59-year-old Kosovo Serb from Lipjan/Lipljan, Mirsad Ibro, a 56-year-old member of the Gorani minority from Pristina, and Nadica Cepkenovic, a 62-year-old Serb born in Skopje and now residing in Pozarevac in Serbia, “systematically mistreated Albanian prisoners” while working as guards at prisons in Pristina and Lipjan/Lipljan.
The suspects, in collaboration with other prison officials, allegedly tortured ethnic Albanian prisoners “with inhumane methods and with various means such as rubber batons, metal rods, kicks and punches … causing bodily harm.
“After these beatings, they [the victims] had terrible pains throughout the body, [suffered] psychological violence and their lives were seriously threatened,” it said.
As a result of their mistreatment, the victims experienced anxiety and fear, the prosecution said in its request for detention, arguing that such acts are war crimes.
Kosovo police arrested all three suspects on Monday.
The Serbian government’s office for Kosovo claimed the arrests were made “under the false pretext of war crimes, on the second day of Easter, [and] fully demonstrated Pristina’s desperation and the anti-Serb orientation of [acting Prime Minister] Albin Kurti, who wants to cover up his political defeats by attacking Serbs”.
The Serbian office claimed that Tonic had been living in Kosovo for 26 years since the war and Cepkenovic had visited the country previously without any issues.
On April 16, the Basic Court of Pristina sentenced another Serb former prison guard, Dragisa Milenkovic, to seven years’ imprisonment for war crimes against civilians during the war, the sentence to include his time spent in detention since June 21, 2023.
Milenkovic was found guilty of the torture, physical and psychological abuse and inhumane and life-threatening mistreatment of Kosovo Albanians held in prisons in Pristina and Lipjan/Lipljan in collaboration with other guards during the 1998-99 war. The verdict can be appealed.
According to the Humanitarian Law Centre Kosovo, more war crimes indictments were issued in Kosovo last year than the previous year.
In 2024 the Special Prosecutor’s Office filed 13 indictments, six of them charging 11 suspects in absentia, all allegedly members of Serbian military or police forces. The other seven indictments concerned 13 former members of Serbian forces who had already been arrested. In 2023, eight indictments were filed in absentia charging 61 people.