Prishtina Basic Court on Monday sentenced former Serbian police officer Dusko Arsic to 13 years of imprisonment on war-crime charges for involvement in Serbian police units committing murders and mistreating Kosovo Albanian civilians during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.

But charges of his personal involvement in expulsion, robbery and burning houses in the Pristina area were dropped.

A similar first-instance verdict two years ago was overturned by the Court of Appeals in January 2025 on “essential violations of the provisions of criminal procedure”.

“From the testimonies we have heard, it was proven in entirety that Dusko Arsic was part … of Serbian police and military forces that committed mistreatment and murders in Butovc village. Witnesses have identified Dusko Arsic as being part of other Serbian police and paramilitary forces,” the judge Vesel Ismaili said. He added that the defence had not provided enough evidence challenging the indictment.

Calling the verdict “absurd”, Nebojsa Vlajic, Arsic’s lawyer, announced an appeal.

“To a greater extent [this is more] absurd than the previous one, even though at first glance it looks the same. Both verdicts are for 13 years in prison. However, in the previous proceedings, Dusko Arsic was convicted of several acts, many of which this judge said were not proven, so they were dropped from the indictment,” Vlajic was quoted by Serbian-language news website KIM as saying.

“How is it possible that the same sentence of 13 years is imposed if something from the previous one was not proven?” he asked referring to the judge’s mention of the dropped charges.

Prosecution witnesses accused Arsic of beating up one of the victims, taking part in the expulsion of civilians and then looting and torching their homes in Pristina between January and June 1999.

According to the indictment, Arsic also participated in the execution of a man called Brahim Shala on February 20, 1999 in the village of Butovc.

The alleged killers ordered another Kosovo Albanian, Artan Krasniqi, who was only 15 years old at the time, to carry the body of the man who had been shot in the back.

Arsic was also accused of hitting Krasniqi in the lower back with the barrel of a machine gun. When he fell to the ground, the Serbian police and paramilitaries began abusing him physically and psychologically.

Krasniqi, who testified that Shala was still breathing and had not yet died when he was carrying him, was present in court when the judge announced the verdict on Friday.

Arsic, who was arrested in September 2021, pleaded not guilty to all charges in November 2022.