Todosijevic prison sentence postponed

The Constitutional Court in Pristina has confirmed to Radio Free Europe that lawyer Nebojsa Vlasjic's request has been accepted to extend the deadline for holding the prison sentence for Ivan Todosijevich, deputy of the Kosovo Parliament from the Serbian List, arguing that “is located abroad”.

The Serbian list is the leading party of Kosovo Serbs, which was formed in 2013 with the support of official Belgrade, while Todosijevic, except as an MP in the Kosovo Assembly, also holds the post of head of Zvecan's interim municipal body in northern Kosovo.

This body functions according to Serbia's system and is considered a parallel structure by Kosovo authorities.

On 24 August, Todosijevic was sentenced to two years in prison, due to his denial of the Recak massacre, in which Serb forces have killed 45 Kosovo Albanians in 1999.

Todosijevic was due on 6 October to be announced for his punishment.

But, his lawyer, Nebojsa Vlasic, has said that Todosijevic has not received at all an invitation to serve this sentence, although the director of the Office for Kosovo in Serbia's Government, Petar Petkovovic, has confirmed otherwise at an extraordinary press conference, on 24 September.

“Ivan Todosijevic has received the invitation since 6 October, at 12 o'clock to be notified at the detention centre in Mitrovica to serve a two-year sentence of”, Petkovic said, claiming this is the new “from Pristina”.

Serbian authorities, led by President Aleksandar Vuciq, say Todosijevic “has been unjustly condemned just because he has told the truth”.

On August 25th, Vuciq, in a video recording published in the “buduknostsbije” account (Serbia's Future) has estimated that Todosijevic “has condemned Albanian judges, though, under the Brussels Agreement, they have been obliged to judge two Serbian judges and an Albanian”.

At that world, he has called on Kosovo Serbs to be united for and around Todosijevic, “as we in central Serbia will be close to him, his family and all Serbian people in Kosovo”.

The lawyer has not wanted to answer Radio Europe's free question about his client's whereabouts, that is, whether he is in Kosovo or Serbia.

I can't tell you this, don't ask me anything like that”, Vladic said.

From the Constitutional Court in Pristina, they have said they cannot speak about what the consequences will be to Todosijevic, if he is not reported at all for the suffering of the sentence, because “in the concrete case could be rejected the procedure for executing criminal punishment”.

For exactly what is Todosijevich condemned?

Ivan Todosijevic has been convicted because of the statement that <x0 disaster for aggression against our country was the so-called humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, the fabricated Recak”.

In the 20th anniversary of the NATO bombings in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in March 2019, Todosijevic said: “These terrorists were shiptar [v.j. Enraged word for Albanians] those who invented all of this, who committed the biggest crimes in Kosovo, for which, until today, no one has claimed responsibility. They committed crimes prior to NATO aggression, they killed nurses and good Serb policemen at home. Their bloody festival continued during aggression and after the arrival of the so-called peacekeeping mission in Kosovo”.

NATO has carried out air strikes against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with the aim of halting violence in Kosovo by the Serbian military, police and paramilitary unit.

This has preceded the massacre of 45 Albanians in the village of Recak of the Shtime municipality.