Bedri Shabani and Muharrem Qerimi pleaded not guilty to espionage charges in the initial hearing against them at the Basic Court in Pristina on Monday.
Asked by Judge Rrahman Beqiri how he pleads, Bedri Shabani said: "I am completely innocent."
Bedri Shabani is accused of providing information to the Serbian Intelligence and Security Agency, known as BIA, before the start of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo and until his arrest in 2024.
He assisted the BIA by providing information and documents about the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the Recak massacre, the Kosovo Intelligence Agency (KIA) and the Kosovo Police, according to the indictment.
He allegedly passed this information on to a senior BIA official, who was allegedly the leader of Serbia's military operation in the Recak massacre, through telephone communications, e-mail, and physical meetings on Serbian territory.
Meanwhile, Muharrem Qerimi told the judge that "I do not plead guilty to the criminal offense of espionage."
Muharrem Qerimi, in addition to providing information about the KLA, the Kosovo Police and the KIA, is accused of sending the BIA data regarding witnesses of the Special Court.
Qerim pleaded guilty to the second charge he is charged with, illegal possession of a weapon.
Last month, the Kosovo Special Prosecution Office filed indictments against Shabani and Qerimi, on suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of espionage.
They were arrested in June last year in the city of Ferizaj and have been held in custody since then.
The initial hearing for them was supposed to be held last week, but was postponed to March 17 after one of the defendants requested more time to understand the indictment before entering a guilty plea./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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