Former political commentator Fatmir Sheholli pleaded not guilty to carrying out espionage and blackmail for the Serbian intelligence agency, BIA, on Monday in a pre-trial hearing at the Pristina Basic Court.

Sheholli, former head of the Pristina-based Institute for Advancing Interethnic Relations, was arrested in October 2025 and has been in detention ever since.

He is accused of acting on instructions from the BIA to collect and pass on information about Kosovo’s institutions, political activities, and security situation.

Judge Avni Syla informed the accused and his counsel that they had the right to challenge the evidence and request the dismissal of the indictment within a 30-day period. However, Sheholli’s lawyer, Mentor Neziri, said his client had waived this right and requested that the court proceed immediately to the trial phase.

According to the indictment, seen by BIRN, Sheholli worked for the BIA until his arrest in October 2025, “collecting and passing on information about Kosovo’s political activities, security situation, and state institutions”.

It alleges that Sheholli carried out the orders of Bojan Dimic, who the prosecution claims is a senior BIA official. Some of the material Sheholli shared, according to the prosecution, concerned Serb-owned properties in Kosovo, business activities, and the functioning of Kosovo’s institutions.

According to the indictment, on August 5, 2025, Sheholli sent a document labelled “Top Secret 2” to a person identified as Viktor Makedonija, outlining a covert political and strategic plan involving influential figures in Kosovo in fields such as sports, music, media and politics, that the prosecution claims aimed to assist Islamic radicalisation in Kosovo and the region and destabilize the country.

They allegedly aimed to portray Kosovo as a radicalised and extremist state, damaging its international standing and influencing Western countries’ positions towards it.

The prosecution further alleges that in September 2025, Sheholli gave material obtained from Dimic to journalist Milaim Zeka for publication through his “Pa Rrotulla” TV programme, including the timing of publication, for which Zeka allegedly received 1,000 euros.

Sheholli denied that Zeka knew about his direct communication with Dimic. He also told the prosecution that Zeka had requested 3,000 to 4,000 euros for translating, editing, and publishing the material.

The prosecution claims that one month after his arrest, Sheholli told his visitors at the Gjilan/Gnilanje Detention Centre “that he received a USB drive, transcripts, and 5,000 euros from a person in North Mitrovica, materials which, according to him, contained intercepted communications and information concerning abuse of office and corruption.

‘He stated that he had handed the materials to journalist Milaim Zeka for publication, giving him 1,000 for publishing them,” it added.

Zeka has not responded to BIRN’s request for comment.

In another allegation, based on a photograph of a document found on Sheholli’s phone, the prosecution alleges that he was involved in a plan to discredit Kosovo’s acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

The document found on Sheholli’s phone relates to the time when Kurti was a political prisoner in Nis, Serbia from 1999 to 2001. The prosecution claims that the document, which Sheholli allegedly planned to use against Kurti, was allegedly drawn up by Serbia’s state security structures in 2001 and was signed by the head of the third sector of Serbia’s state security service.

Sheholli is also charged with blackmailing a Kosovo Albanian businessman, Arben Jetullahu, between 2022 and December 2025, demanding more than 13,000 euros, threatening that video recordings and other information damaging to the businessman would be made public if he refused.

In December 2021, a BIRN investigation found that RAD, a company owned by Radule Stevic, a Kosovo Serb businessman blacklisted by the US for alleged corruption, had been winning government tenders in Kosovo’s Serb-dominated north and then subcontracting construction work to ethnic Albanian-owned firms, including one owned by Jetullahu.

In October 2025, BIRN reported that former KIA director Driton Gashi spent more than 1 million euros from the Special Operational Fund, including 500,000 euros for which the recipient could not be identified. However, the agency’s chief inspector, Kujtim Shala, confirmed that the other 500,000 had been received by Sheholli.

This is the sixth case at the Pristina Basic Court related to charges of espionage for Serbian intelligence agency in the past two years.

In August, the Pristina Basic Court ordered 30 days of detention for Fehim Sali, who has reportedly admitted working for Serbia’s BIA, which allegedly paid him to identify other potential recruits.

In June, the same court sentenced a Kosovo Albanian man, Hysri Selimi, a former Islamic State member, to six years in prison for espionage. In May, the court sentenced Kosovo Police lieutenant Bojan Jevtic to six years’ imprisonment for espionage. Jevtic was found guilty of leaking information about the Kosovo police to the BIA.

In April, the court sentenced Jelena Djukanovic, an employee of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, to six years’ imprisonment for spying for Serbia by providing internal OSCE information related to the situation mainly in the Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo.

In June 2025, the court sentenced Aleksandar Vlajic to five years’ imprisonment for espionage as the BIA’s resident agent.