The Special Prosecution of Kosovo has filed an indictment against 21 individuals for the massacre in Račak, where 45 civilians were killed on January 15, 1999.
An indictment for the criminal offense of “war crime against the civilian population” was filed against O.S., R.M., K.J., G.R., ZH.T., B.J., M.L., R.M., D.GJ., B.M., D.J., M.SH., D.A., S.V., B.M., Z.S., M.J., G.P., D.N., and Ç.A.
They are accused of killing 42 civilians in Račak, in the municipality of Shtime, during an operation carried out by Serbian police forces.
The Prosecution has proposed that the trial be conducted in absentia, as the accused are considered “unreachable for Kosovo’s justice authorities.”
According to the indictment, during the period 1998–1999, the accused, as members of the former Yugoslav Army, the 243rd Mechanized Brigade of the Third Army—known as the “Pristina Corps”—as well as members of Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, “committed inhumane treatment, destruction of property, mass expulsions, and ethnic cleansing of the civilian population.”
The Prosecution stated that the defendants had surrounded the village of Račak from areas known as “Pishat,” “Gështenjat,” and “Çesta.”
According to the indictment, they then shelled the village, carried out house-to-house searches, and separated men from women and children, forcing the latter to leave the village, “while the detained men were executed.”
“The investigations have confirmed that the defendants exercised physical violence against civilians, beating them with rifle butts, kicks, wooden sticks, chains, and other hard objects,” the Prosecution’s statement said.
At the time, as a result of this operation by Serbian forces, around 20,000 civilians from the villages of Račak, Topillë, Petrovë, Kraisht, Mullapollc, and Dremjak were expelled from their homes, the Prosecution said.
Trials in absentia, as requested by the Special Prosecution in this case, have been made possible in Kosovo following amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code adopted in 2022.
However, such trials may only be conducted on the condition that the prosecution and the court have exhausted all means to secure the presence of the accused.
The Code also stipulates that persons tried in absentia have the right to an unconditional retrial once they are arrested.
The documentation of the crimes committed in Račak was carried out by William Walker, who in 1999 served as head of the OSCE Verification Mission.
Following the Račak massacre, in March 1999, NATO launched attacks on military and police targets in the former Yugoslavia.
After 78 days of strikes, the bombings ended on June 10, 1999, with the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.
NATO’s intervention in Kosovo also enabled the return of more than 800,000 refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes, both within and outside Kosovo.
During the war in Kosovo in 1998–1999, more than 13,000 civilians were killed and thousands of others went missing.
Around 1,600 people remain missing to this day—most of them ethnic Albanians.
In recent years, Kosovo has increased the number of indictments filed in absentia for war crimes committed during the last war.
Earlier this year, the Special Prosecution filed an indictment in absentia against 21 suspects for the forced expulsion of more than 800,000 ethnic Albanian civilians from Kosovo during the war.