At the Basic Court in Pristina, a court session against former Serbian police officers Zoran Kosti\u0107 and Dragan Milovi\u0107, accused of war crimes, failed to take place. In today\u2019s session, the prosecution\u2019s witness, Naim Haliti, was scheduled to testify, but the defense of the accused, Zoran Kosti\u0107, opposed continuing the witness\u2019s hearing, arguing that they had received the witness\u2019s statement in Serbian only 10 minutes before the session began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kosti\u0107\u2019s defense attorney, Predrag Milovi\u0107, stated that they were not ready to continue the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, we are not ready because we only just received the translated statement of the witness 10 minutes ago. We consider that we need time to review this statement. I regret that we lost 20 days since the last session, but the defense cannot agree to continue under these circumstances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The presiding judge, Lutfi Shala, also confirmed that the court had received the witness\u2019s statement translated into Serbian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis 10-15 minute delay was precisely due to this statement because, according to the prosecution, the statement was sent by email to the judge. In reality, the statement was not sent to the court via email. We had requested the statement, but we did not have it. Today, the court has obtained the witness\u2019s statement translated into Serbian from the prosecution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the case prosecutor, Florije Shamolli, requested that the witness proposed by the prosecution be heard today and questioned only by the prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo avoid delaying the procedure, it is better that the witness is questioned by the prosecution now, and the defense can question the witness in the next session. The agenda is set only for the morning session anyway,\u201d the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked by the court whether today\u2019s session could continue, Zoran Kosti\u0107\u2019s attorney, Predrag Milovi\u0107, refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, I don\u2019t know what the prosecutor will ask; we need to review the statement first,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the absence of conditions to continue the judicial review, presiding judge Lutfi Shala adjourned today\u2019s session, which will continue on\u00a0November 24 at 13:15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWithout intending to deny the defense the right to effective representation, I consider that there are no conditions to continue the judicial review today and give the attorney time to read the statement,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In previous sessions, the testimonies of two prosecution witnesses, Habib Mustafa and Rrahim Tahiri, were heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zoran Kosti\u0107 and Dragan Milovi\u0107 are accused, in their capacity as members of the Serbian police, together with other police, army, and Serbian paramilitary members, of committing war crimes against the civilian population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the initial trial session held in June 2024, both defendants pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the Basic Court in Pristina, a court session against former Serbian police officers Zoran Kosti\u0107 and Dragan Milovi\u0107, accused of war crimes, failed to take place. In today\u2019s session, the prosecution\u2019s witness, Naim Haliti, was scheduled to testify, but the defense of the accused, Zoran Kosti\u0107, opposed continuing the witness\u2019s hearing, arguing that they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":77631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301,296],"tags":[1479,6855],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77632,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77630\/revisions\/77632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}