The 45 people were charged in absentia for their alleged involvement in the 2023 gunfight that left four dead near the Banjska village in the north of Kosovo.
Kosovo prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges against 45 people over planning and instigating a gunfight by heavily armed Serb gunmen last year.
A Kosovo policeman and three Serb gunmen were killed in a shootout in the village of Banjska in the country’s north last September. Pristina has accused Serbia of involvement, but Belgrade denied it.
Among those charged in absentia is Milan Radoičić, a politician and wealthy businessman with ties to Serbia’s ruling populist party and President Aleksandar Vučić.
Prosecutor Naim Abazi said he is considered the leader of the group who “has played an important role in coordinating and in the criminal activity.”
Last year, Serbia briefly detained Radoičić after he fled back into Serbia on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, unlawful possession of weapons and explosives and grave acts against public safety. Radoičić denied the charges although he earlier admitted he was part of the paramilitary group involved in the gunfight.
Radoičić also has been under US and UK sanctions for his alleged financial criminal activity. Serbia said that Radoičić and his group acted on their own.
The 45 people face charges of violation of the constitutional and legal order, terror activities, funding terrorism and money laundering. They carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Abazi considered the case as the “most complex they have ever had,” adding they cooperated closely with international institutions, Brussels and Washington to build up the “powerful charges”.
EU and US officials have demanded that Serbia bring the perpetrators to justice.
Brussels and Washington are pressing both sides to implement agreements that Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti reached in February and March last year.
They include a commitment by Kosovo to establish a Community of Serb Municipalities, a union of ethnic Serb-majority municipalities.
Kosovo was a Serbian province until NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999 ended a conflict between Belgrade government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, which left about 13,000 dead, mainly ethnic Albanians. After becoming a UN protectorate in the interim, Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, a move recognised by most EU member states, the US and the UK, but not Serbia.
