The initial hearing in the case of the massacre in Mejë and other villages in the Gjakova region was held on Monday, June 16, at the Basic Court in Pristina.
The trial in this case is being held in absentia and the defendants are represented by their lawyers.
Judge Violeta Namani-Hajra said that the court has no information about the whereabouts of the defendants, while prosecutor Ilir Morina said that an international arrest warrant has been issued for them.
After the conclusion of the initial hearing, the defendants' defense has 30 days to appeal the prosecution's claims.
The crime in Mejë and the surrounding villages occurred in April 1999, when 370 Kosovo Albanians were killed, whose bodies were later found in eight mass graves in Batajnica, Serbia.
The indictment, filed in December 2023 and supplemented in April 2024, includes 53 people, among whom the main suspect is Momir Stojanović, former head of the Security Department at the Pristina Corps Command, who was also the director of the Military and Security Agency of Serbia.
Among the defendants are Franko Simatović “Frenki”, commander of the Special Operations Unit (JSO), formed by the Serbian State Security Service in the early 1990s; Sreten Čamović, former chief of security; Veroljub Živković, former chief of staff of the Pristina Corps; Illija Todorov, former commander of the 63rd Parachute Brigade, and Dragan Živanović, former commander of the 52nd Rocket Artillery Brigade.
The role of the JSO in the war in Kosovo
At the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, the Serbian State Security Service - later known as the Security and Information Agency, BIA - established the Special Operations Unit (JSO).
At the time, this service was headed by Jovica Stanisic - one of the closest associates of the then Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.
His right-hand man was Franko Simatović, known as "Frenki", founder of the JSO and responsible for coordinating paramilitary units on the war fronts in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In May 2023, the Court in The Hague finally sentenced Stanisic and Simatovic to 15 years in prison each for supporting and encouraging war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.
They were found guilty of crimes in Bijeljina, Doboj, Zvornik, Tërnovo, Sanski Most and Bosanski Šamac.
The Special Operations Unit, under this name, also participated in the war in Kosovo during 1998-1999.
In an interview with the international organization Human Rights Watch, a Serbian policeman who had served for six months in Kosovo in 1998 described the JSO members, also known as the “Frankists,” as extremely brutal.
"The Frankists kill everyone. Believe me, you don't want to see them," he declared in an interview included in the HRW book "By Order: War Crimes in Kosovo," which was published in Serbian in 2003 by Samizdat B92.
Among those accused of crimes in Meja and other villages around Gjakova are other officials of the Serbian State Security Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who are accused of planning and implementing Operation "Reka", during which 370 Albanian civilians were killed.
They are accused of murder, physical and sexual violence, torture, looting and ethnic expulsion of Albanians.
What does the indictment say?
The indictment states, among other things, that each defendant had a specific role in organizing and coordinating the forces under his command.
The action began on April 27, 1999 and ended on April 29, 1999.
Investigations have revealed that in the village of Mejë 270 civilians were killed and 13 remain missing; in the village of Korenica 64 civilians were killed and two remain missing; in the village of Pacaj one civilian was killed; in the village of Dobrosh three civilians were killed; in the village of Rracaj one civilian was killed and two remain missing; in the village of Nec two civilians were killed; in the village of Ramoc five civilians were killed; in the village of Bishtazhin six civilians were killed and one remains missing.
Investigations have revealed that due to the systematic violence exercised by Serbian forces, residents of this region were expelled from their homes, and after their property was looted and their homes were burned, they - faced with physical violence and death threats - were expelled towards Albania.
The columns of expelled people were forced to pass through three checkpoints, located in the villages of Mejë, Korenica and Orizë.
According to the indictment, Serbian military-police and paramilitary forces separated many men from the column and killed them, while others were stripped of their identification documents, money and other valuables.
Under insults and physical abuse, they were then forced to head towards Albania.
The indictment also states that the crimes committed by the defendants, such as: murder, expulsion of the civilian population, looting of property, destruction of property, etc., at the time of their commission, were provided for by the domestic legislation of the then Yugoslavia.
Village of tears
The trial in Pristina is being held in the absence of the defendants, as they are not available to the Kosovo judicial authorities.
Prosecutor Drita Hajdari, now retired, previously stated that Meja's case was inherited from the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), which in 2013 opened investigations against 18 people.
She announced that, after taking over the case at the end of 2018, local prosecutors continued and expanded the investigation against 35 other people, bringing the total number of defendants in this case to 53.
The EULEX rule of law monitoring report, published in November 2024, states that the indictment for the crimes in Meja is a high-priority case and involves a complex legal doctrine of command responsibility.
"For the first time, it also addresses the extermination of entire villages - which further increases its complexity," the report says.
Kandic: The accused are in Serbia, protected from criminal liability
Natasa Kandic, founder of the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia, says that the crime in Meja has never been sufficiently clarified to bring justice to the victims and contribute to establishing justice after the war in Kosovo.
She adds that most of the bodies of those killed in Meja and surrounding villages, near Gjakova, have been exhumed from mass graves at the police complex in Batajnica, but that 15 other people are still missing.
Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Kandic says that numerous pieces of evidence have been presented and proven before the Hague Tribunal, which have enabled the judicial authorities in Serbia to initiate proceedings and prosecute the biggest crime in Kosovo, so that those responsible can be punished.
But this, as she says, never happened.
The Humanitarian Law Center, adds Kandic, initiated the case of Momir Stojanovic, the main suspect for the crimes in Meja, in 2015, and then, according to her, the EULEX prosecutor issued an international arrest warrant for him that same year.
She says that the Humanitarian Law Center has asked the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office in Serbia to launch investigations, but that the response has been "disappointing" - that Momir Stojanović "does not appear in the evidentiary documentation".
“The crime is terrible, the crime is the biggest [in Kosovo]. Only the highest representatives of the Pristina Corps of the Third Army have been held responsible for that crime, but there is a very long list of those belonging to that rank of officers, with important positions... and no one has been held responsible.”
"They are all in Serbia, some of them are retired, but they are all in Serbia, protected from criminal liability, because there is no political will to punish them, especially those crimes in Mejë, Korenica and other villages near the border with Albania," says Kandic.
Trial in absentia
Trial in absentia in Kosovo was made possible with the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code in 2022, but only on the condition that the prosecution and court have exhausted all means to ensure the presence of the accused.
However, the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that persons tried in absentia, because the authorities have failed to secure their presence, have the right to an unconditional retrial when arrested.
According to the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, since the entry into force of the law on trials in absentia until February 2025, fifteen indictments have been filed in absentia against 73 members of Serbian forces suspected of committing war crimes in Kosovo.
The first verdict in absentia was delivered in December 2024 in the case of Çedomir Aksiq, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population, committed between January and May 1999 in the territory of the Shtime municipality in Kosovo.
"Trials in absentia do not bring justice"
Kandic estimates that "when politics replaces the law, then we have trials in absentia in criminal justice."
"For those who are not available, for those who are in Serbia, the rest of their lives will be such that they will not be able to move anywhere outside Serbia, because they will be arrested. As for justice, the question arises whether the Kosovo judiciary will be able to prove the crimes against all the accused, whether the trial will look like a forum where only the victims' confessions will be heard, without any communication with the Serbian judicial authorities," says Kandic.
She adds that trials in absentia do not bring justice if there is no institutional cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia.
According to her, the European Union should find a solution for this cooperation within the framework of the dialogue for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, "so that documented and high-quality indictments can be filed and that can lead to effective results in practice."
On the contrary, Kandic emphasizes, trials in absentia will not bring major changes, except for the fact that both Kosovo and Serbia will protect their citizens convicted of war crimes.
Bekim Blakaj, from the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, previously told Radio Free Europe that war crimes trials in absentia “go against European standards for fair trials” because the accused are unable to defend themselves.
In absentia trials in Kosovo, defendants are represented by appointed ex officio lawyers.
"For us, this is not a fair trial," said Blakaj, adding that absentee verdicts are "false justice" for the victims or their family members, who may initially feel relieved, but over time will remain disappointed, as the convicted will continue to be free.
During the war in Kosovo, from 1998 to 1999, over 13,000 civilians were killed, while thousands more went missing.
Around 1,600 people, mainly Albanians, are still missing./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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