On Wednesday, the Prishtina Basic Court found Kosovo Serb Milorad Djokovic guilty of war crimes during the war in Kosovo. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Djokovic was found guilty of having been involved in murders, raids, beatings, arrests, torture and inhumane and cruel treatment of ethnic Albanian civilians in the village of Ozdrim in the western municipality of Peja/Pec, during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo.

According to the prosecution, Djokovic was part of the Serbian armed forces that surrounded and attacked Ozdrim in May 1999.

“The village was surrounded and then attacked from three directions by Serb military and police forces. Six Albanian civilians were killed and three others were wounded during these actions,” the indictment said. The remains of five of the people who were killed have not been found.

“Those three wounded people were sent to Peja/Pec hospital and then executed and buried in the village of Lutogllave,” the indictment said.

According to the indictment, the armed group that included Djokovic arrested around 40 civilians. Twelve of them were released after three days “deprived of food and water and suffering torture”, while 28 others were sent to Peja/Pec prison and then transferred to Leskovac prison in Serbia after the war.

They were released after the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the indictment said.

After the verdict, Halit Gashi, one of the damaged parties in this case told media that “no sentence can bring back the lives of those who were unjustly taken”.

“I don’t know what kind of sentence this is. It’s ridiculous,” Gashi added.

Djokovic had pleaded not guilty in July 2023.

His arrest in 2022 sparked angry reactions from the Serbian government, which claimed that it was an example of the intimidation of Serbs in Kosovo.