Slavko Simic (entrance) and co-defendant Uros Vukasinovic (centre) in court docket on October 9, 2025. Photograph: BIRN.
Slavko Simic, the deputy chief of Srpska Lista, the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb social gathering, pleaded not responsible on Thursday to collaborating in and ordering assaults on journalists in 2023 throughout unrest within the Serb-majority municipality of Leposavic in north Kosovo.
“Honourable choose, I’m completely not responsible,” Simic, whose social gathering is backed by Belgrade, advised the court docket. His co-accused, Uros Vukasinovic, pleaded not responsible on the preliminary listening to too.
Simic and Vukasinovic are charged with being a part of a violent, masked mob that attacked reporters. Vukasinovic can also be charged with assault.
Prosecutor Ajtene Zoni advised the court docket that Simic “willingly participated within the crowd of greater than eight individuals, which with its joint actions precipitated common hazard”.
He mentioned the mob first threw stun grenades at Elbert Krasniqi, the Minister of Native Governance, after which, inspired by Simic shouting “hit the media”, attacked 12 Kosovo journalists.
In keeping with the prosecutor, stun grenades had been thrown in direction of the journalists, who had been then hit and kicked and had bricks and paint thrown at them, damaging telephones and automobiles. Two journalists suffered critical bodily accidents.
Co-defendant Vukasinovic, in line with the prosecutor, was a part of the group and immediately attacked the journalists.
Indignant protests by Serbs erupted when ethnic Albanian mayors had been appointed to run Serb-majority municipalities after Kosovo Serb voters boycotted native elections.
In one other incident linked to the 2023 unrest, defendant Dalibor Spasic was convicted of involvement in assaults on journalists throughout protests by Serbs in Zvecan, northern Kosovo. He acquired a six-month jail time period that was transformed right into a high quality.
Spasic was discovered responsible of participation in a crowd that attacked journalist Burim Zariqi in Might 2023, whereas Zariqi was reporting on clashes between troops from NATO’s KFOR peacekeeping pressure and ethnic Serbs protesting towards the city’s newly appointed ethnic Albanian mayor. Spasic admitted guilt and expressed remorse.
The Affiliation of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, registered 30 assaults on journalists through the protests within the north of Kosovo. Protesters threw rocks and eggs at journalists, pushed them, compelled them to delete footage, took away their cameras and verbally assaulted them. Autos of media crews had been vandalised.
Kosovo Police arrested two suspects for collaborating within the assaults towards KFOR, together with Milun “Lune” Milenkovic and three different suspects for assaults on journalists in Zvecan and Leposavic in Might 2023.
