The Sheholli case before the court: Prosecution alleges election interference ordered by Serbian secret service

In the first court session held at the Basic Court in Pristina, Fatmir Sheholli, accused of espionage, pleaded not guilty to all charges brought by the Special Prosecution.

His defense lawyer, Mentor Neziri, announced that his client and the legal team have decided to withdraw the request to challenge the indictment, aiming to proceed directly to the judicial review phase. According to Neziri, the decision was made considering the time spent in detention and the volume of evidence to be examined during the process.

Prosecutor Bekim Kodraliu presented the main submissions of the indictment, emphasizing that the defendant is suspected of having acted continuously and with direct intent as a collaborator of Serbia’s Intelligence Service (BIA). According to him, Sheholli followed the instructions of a senior official of this service, Bojan Dimic, who headed the Department against Terrorism and International Organized Crime.

The indictment describes that for a period up to October 9, 2025, Sheholli collected and transmitted through electronic communication channels sensitive information related to political life, the security situation, and the functioning of Kosovo’s state institutions.

A central point of the investigation is an action plan that, according to the prosecution, was prepared by the BIA to damage the country’s interests and to manipulate the local elections of October 12, 2025. The indictment describes that on September 26, 2025, Sheholli traveled accompanied by a relative in a vehicle toward North Mitrovica. There, in a parking lot near the Technical School, close to the “Sindikata” café, he allegedly received from an unidentified individual audio recordings and transcripts of conversations of senior officials in the Ministry for Communities and Return.

The prosecution claims that these materials were intended to discredit those officials and that Sheholli was rewarded with 5,000 euros for this action. Further, following directives, the same materials along with 1,000 euros were delivered to a journalist, whom he instructed on how and when to make them public, just hours before election day.

Continuing with the claims, Kodraliu stressed that these actions have seriously damaged state interests, incited social division, and enabled direct interference by a foreign agency in a Kosovo electoral process. Details of the 80-page dossier include a wide range of evidence, such as phone interceptions extracted from the defendant’s device, video recordings from security cameras, seized documents, numerous testimonies, and a financial report.

In addition to the espionage charge, Sheholli is also charged with the criminal offense of blackmail. According to the claims, he possessed compromising video recordings of a Kosovar businessman and demanded a sum of over 13,000 euros from him in exchange for not publishing them.

The investigative file also mentions documents found on Sheholli’s phone, such as the one coded “Top Secret 2,” which describes a plan to portray Kosovo as a radicalized state, and the “Leptiri” file, an old plan by the Serbian secret service to compromise the current prime minister, Albin Kurti, during the time he was in Serbian prisons.

When asked by the court about guilt, Sheholli responded briefly that he does not feel guilty. Today’s session marked the first procedural step of this judicial process, which is expected to involve numerous witnesses and evidence in the coming stages.