Indictment over the Gjakova massacre: Milan Radoičić and 19 others face trial

The Special Prosecution Office of the Republic of Kosovo filed an indictment on Thursday against 20 individuals for war crimes linked to events in the Gjakova region.

The list of defendants also includes Milan Radoičić.

According to the prosecution, the group is implicated in the killing of 107 unarmed residents. As they cannot physically appear before justice, the Special Prosecution Office has proposed that the trial be conducted in absentia.

Although the indictment contains their full names, the official statement referred to them only by their initials: M.K., R.C., M.D., P.R., S.K., L.O., Zh.S., S.S., L.D., Z.R., D.G., Ç.B., V.B., R.B., R.R., L.R., M.Sh., M.R., S.G. and T.A. They are charged with the criminal offense of “war crimes against the civilian population.”

The prosecution has also disclosed the positions held by some of them during the conflict.

According to the investigation, between 1998 and 1999, M.K. served as head of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs in Gjakova, R.Ç. headed Special Police units, while M.D. commanded the 52nd Rocket Artillery Brigade. Together with Radoičić and the other individuals involved, as part of “a broad military-police operation,” they are accused of participating in the killing of 107 civilians.

The prosecution says that during the operation, the defendants separated women and children from the men. The women were robbed of their gold jewelry, money and valuables, while the men were executed in their homes, in courtyards or near the location known as the “Taliq Bridge.” The homes were also set on fire.

The message conveyed by these charges is unequivocal, security expert Arben Dashevci said. According to him, despite the protection they receive from Serbia, sooner or later they will be forced to answer before Kosovo’s state institutions.

Commenting on the trial in absentia, Dashevci told “Bota sot” that it is clear the defendants do not feel at ease in the face of these charges. He added that efforts to deliver justice and international cooperation to arrest them continue unabated, with the aim of apprehending them wherever they may be.

He further said that Kosovo’s institutions are doing an excellent job pursuing those responsible for the horrific massacres and expressed his conviction that justice will catch up with them sooner or later.

Meanwhile, journalist Gëzim Olluri views this type of legal proceeding as an essential institutional tool for preserving the collective memory. In his view, bringing evidence from the field into the legal sphere gives wartime testimony an official form, creating an indisputable archive for the future.

According to Olluri, bringing the perpetrators to justice and securing convictions alleviates, even if only slightly, the suffering of the victims’ families. He stressed that this is not an ordinary court case, but evidence of Serbia’s genocidal intent, and that such a process goes beyond the bounds of a simple criminal trial.

He added that confronting the past is essential for political stability and that there can be no genuine negotiations with Serbia without accountability for the genocide against Albanians.

It is worth recalling that in April 2025, the Basic Court in Gjakova issued arrest warrants for Radoičić and 19 other Serbian nationals over suspicions of involvement in the killing of civilians whose remains were later found in a mass grave in Batajnica, Serbia.

The reasoning behind those arrest warrants stated that between May 7 and 10, 1999, Serbian armed and police forces, including the defendants, entered homes one by one near the “Taliq Bridge” in Gjakova, separated the men from the women and children, and then executed 106 Albanian civilians.

According to the same document, the same group of individuals, including Radoičić, had arrested more than 300 Albanian civilians during the same period, holding them in makeshift prisons without humane conditions, regular food, hygiene or medical care, before a large number of them were transferred to other prisons in Kosovo. According to the Gjakova court, these individuals were released after June 1999 with the assistance of international organizations.