The Basic Court of Prishtina on Monday sentenced a Kosovo Serb, Milos Antovic, to four years and 11 months’ imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 euros for attacking the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, and the Kosovo Police, in a violent protest in the Serb-majority northern municipality of Zvecan on May 29, 2023.

Antovic, who was not present for the verdict, earlier on Monday reached a guilty plea deal with the prosecution for the crimes of attack against an official person, hooliganism, illegal possession of weapons and narcotics.

Antovic’s lawyer, Pleurat Beka, told the court that he “had understood the nature and consequences of pleading guilty after sufficient consultation with us as defence counsel. He has admitted his guilt of his own free will and has entered into a plea agreement. He was not forced or coerced into pleading guilty,” which Antovic also confirmed.

The court approved the defence’s request for the 20,000-euro fine to be paid in installments within two years.

Judge Valon Kurtaj also explained that Antovic must also pay 150 euros for court proceedings and 100 euros to the victims’ compensation fund.

The violent protests in four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo in May 2023 left 93 KFOR members injured. Protesting Serbs argued that the ethnic Albanian mayors of Leposavic, North Mitrovica, Zvecan and Zubin Potok, who had won the elections after Serbs boycotted the polls, were illegitimate and should not be allowed to take office.

In February 2024, Rados Petrovic and Dusan Obrenovic were found guilty of participating in the violence. Petrovic received a six-month prison sentence, later converted to a fine of 6,000 euros. Obrenovic was also sentenced to six months, with time served in pretrial detention accounting for most of his sentence.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, registered 30 attacks against journalists during the protests. Protesters threw rocks and eggs at journalists, pushed them, forced them to delete footage, took away their cameras and verbally assaulted them. Vehicles of media crews were vandalised.

In February this year, the Basic Court of Mitrovica sentenced Kosovo Serb Dalibor Spasic to six months in prison for attacking a journalist during the May 2023 unrest in Zvecan. The jail sentence was converted into an 8,000-euro fine.

As a result of the riots and the escalation of the security situation in the north of the country, the number of KFOR personnel in Kosovo was increased by around 1,000.

“We have increased KFOR’s posture in northern Kosovo, and tripled the number of patrols, including along the Administrative Boundary Line,” KFOR said at the time.

In June 2023, the EU and US announced a package of “reversible” measures against Kosovo, citing its failure to restore calm in the Serb-majority north.

Kosovo later drafted an administrative directive aimed at easing the situation, allowing people to request the dismissal of the mayors. But the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista party boycotted participation in new elections held in April 2024, leaving the ethnic Albanian mayors in office.

In May this year, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced a gradual removal of the measures.