Former Serb prison guard Boban Tonic on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of torturing and mistreating ethnic Albanians held at the jail in Lipjan/Ljipjane during the Kosovo war.
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Boban Tonic in the courtroom on January 20, 2025. Photo: BIRN
Boban Tonic entered a not guilty plea at Pristina Basic court on Tuesday, where he is on trial for allegedly committing war crimes against ethnic Albanian prisoners held in the Lipljan/Ljipjane prison.
Kosovo’s Special Prosecution alleges that Tonic, 59, while serving as a prison guard during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo, deliberately violated the rules of international law, by “systematically mistreating Albanian prisoners, torturing them inhumanely with various means such as rubber batons, metal rods, kicks and punches, and even suffocation, causing them bodily harm”.
“No,” he telegraphically replied to the judge’s question on whether he accepted the charges.
Predrag Miljkovic, Tonic’s lawyer, announced that he will submit his objections to the indictment within the 20-day deadline.
“We have a large number of objections and will present all of them and they are about witnesses’ testimonies, the indictment and its provisions,” Miljkovic was quoted by the Serbian- language news portal Kossev as saying.
“We believe the indictment is not specified and there is no specific and clearly described action that is prohibited and which Boban undertook – it was simply stated that Boban tortured, treated inhumanely, and mistreated certain people,” he added.
The indictment says that victims in the prison “were left without food for days, were seriously threatened with death, and as a result of this and the continuous beatings, they suffered a state of anxiety and fear”.
Tonic has been in detention since his arrest on April 21, 2025.