A man found guilty of rape is serving as an adviser to the Ministry for Community and Return of the government of Kosovo. The adviser, Nenad Cvetkovic, was found guilty of raping a minor in 1997.

Cvetkovic served as mayor of the Serb-majority municipality of Partes, near Gjilan, managed to gain the trust of the Minister for Return Dalibor Jevtic and become an advisor on returnee integration.

His prominent criminal record, known to the small Serb community of the Kosovo region of Anamorava, did not prevent him from becoming advisor.

In 1997, Cvetkovic and seven other individuals were sentenced by the former District Court of Gjilan to 52 years in prison for raping two girls from Gracanica, one of whom was a minor at the time.

Minister of Communities and Return Dalibor Jevtic told Prishtina Insight that Cvetkovic became his advisor around May 2015 and that he was not aware of Cvetkovic’s past.

“No, I do not possess an information like that,” Jevtic said.

The minister justified Cvetkovic’s appointment by saying that his service as the mayor of Partes had a legal basis.

Furthermore, Jevtic defends his advisor by calling him one of the best political leaders of his region and that he is respected by the people.

“I know that he has the support of the people and he is appreciated. He is one of the best political leaders,” Jevtic told PI while not wanting to comment on Cvetkovic’s future.

“It his a human right to be employed. Should he [Cvetkovic] not live?” Jevtic asked.

PI contacted the Prime Minister’s Office to comment on the issue but they refused to answer.

Cvetkovic requested that PI not deal with an issue that happened 20 years ago and reiterated that his case, at the time, was politically framed.

“It was the Milosevic era and do you know how many Albanians were sentenced for rape and other crimes at the time?” Cvetkovic said.

“Tell me what answer you want from me and I will give it to you,” he said. “I’m telling you that I was framed. Now I have to go and work to earn my salary,” Cvetkovic concluded.

In 2013, when Cvetkovic was mayor of Partes, PI discovered official documents of his and his friends’ sentencing from the former District Court of Gjilan.

Court documents such as his indictment and verdict, which PI ossess describe Cvetkovic as “head bandit of the brutal crime.”

At the time, Cvetkovic was working temporarily in Switzerland, but on a visit to Kosovo on the 16th of September 1996, he and his friends took two young girls from Gracanica into their car, took them to Pasjan, a village near Gjilan, and raped them all night long.

Ivan Bajazit, presiding judge of the case who now works as a lawyer in Belgrade, told PI in 2013 that he was delegated to Kosovo for the case because the family members of the victims did not believe the judges from Gjilan because some of them were from Pasjan.

Thus, Bajazit refutes Cvetkovic’s claims that it was a political verdict.

“It’s a stupidity. This was a classic crime,” he said.

Cvetkovic’s biggest success was not getting more than 1,000 votes to be elected mayor, but the fact that he was one of the first local Serbs who willingly accepted to cooperate with the Kosovar government.

He started off as an independent with the Zavicaj list, but then joined the Independent Liberal Serb Party that was part of former Prime Minster Hashim Thaci’s governing coalition.