Kosovo Charges Serbian Security Officers Over Jashari Compound Massacre

Blerim Isufaj (C), Chief Prosecutor at the Kosovo Special Prosecution, with prosecutor Valdet Gashi on September 4, 2026. Photo: BIRN. Kosovo’s Special Prosecution announced on Friday that it has filed an indictment charging 35 suspects with involvement in the murder of 26 civilians at the compound of Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA commander Adem Jashari in the village of Prekaz in Skenderaj/Srbica in March 1998. “After years of work, we have succeeded in finalising the investigation into the Prekaz case by filing an indictment. We have managed to substantiate the well-founded suspicion that the accused committed the criminal offence of war crimes against the civilian population – specifically on March 5, 6, and 7, 1998, in the village of Prekaz, more precisely in the Jashari neighbourhood,” prosecutor Valdet Gashi said. BIRN has seen the indictment which, among others, includes the names of Jovica Stanisic, the former head of the Serbian State Security Service; Vlastimir Djordjevic, a former high-ranking Serbian Interior Ministry official; Sreten Lukic, a wartime head of the Serbian interior ministry’s staff for Kosovo and Milorad ‘Legija’ Ulemek, a former commander of Serbia’s State Security Unit for Special Operations. “Based on material and testimonial evidence, we have identified 35 accused individuals in this case who held high command positions within the Serbian special police units,” Gashi added. Serbian police and military forces besieged the Jashari family compound in Prekaz from March 5 to 7, 1998, leaving 59 dead, including the founder of the KLA, Adem Jashari, himself. The assault caused outrage among Kosovo Albanians and is seen as the incident that encouraged widespread armed resistance against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime. Gashi told media on Friday that the indictment was filed in absentia as the authorities could not secure the presence of the suspects. Stanisic is currently serving a sentence for war crimes in another case after being convicted by the Hague Tribunal, while Ulemek is in prison for his role in the killing of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Djordjevic and Lukic have been released after serving war crimes sentences for other crimes. Chief Special Prosecution Prosecutor Blerim Isufaj highlighted the indictment as “the first one concerning the killing of civilians in the Jashari family compound in Prekaz, Skenderaj”. In cases concerning war crimes committed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, legal cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia remains almost non-existent, so it appears unlikely that most of the indictees will be available for trial.