Batrovci Arrest Tied to 1999 War Crime Near Djakovica

Serbia’s Ministry of Interior (MUP) confirmed on August 14 that a man was arrested at the Batrovci border crossing toward Croatia. D. M., 47, was taken into custody on suspicion that in June 1999, in the village of Bec, in the municipality of Djakovica, he committed the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population. He was ordered into pretrial detention for up to 30 days.

The suspect was arrested by officers from the MUP’s War Crimes Detection Service, working with border police officials. The statement said he was born in 1979. Interior Minister Ivica Dacic described what he is suspected of.

“There are grounds to suspect that he committed the stated offense against the civilian population, to the detriment of members of two families, during June 1999 in the village of Bec, in the Djakovica municipality in the Kosovo and Metohija Autonomous Province,” Dacic said.

The names of the victims have not been released. The MUP’s statement did not provide further details about the 1999 event itself.

The suspect was first held by police for up to 48 hours. He was then brought before the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office along with a criminal complaint. A pretrial judge at the Higher Court in Belgrade’s War Crimes Department ordered his detention for up to 30 days.

What is known about the border detention

The case was first made public by a lawyer from Kosovo, a day before the MUP issued its statement. According to him, the man was detained on the evening of August 12, while crossing the border between Serbia and Croatia. He was initially held for a check, and his family was informed a few hours later that he had been transferred to Belgrade and that proceedings against him were continuing. The reason and legal basis were not known at the time.

In his social media post, the lawyer also gave the arrested man’s full name and exact date of birth. Serbian institutions have not done so, and this article likewise withholds the name pending a final verdict. The same lawyer criticized Kosovo’s political scene over infighting among its figures.

“Someone has to look out for the citizen of Kosovo, too,” he said.

The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Veterans Organization stated that the arrested man does not appear on its list of people with veteran status.

How many such arrests have there been?

This is not an isolated case this year. In early August, the MUP announced the arrest of M. M., born in 1981, at the Horgos crossing, on suspicion that on July 26, 1999, in the village of Klobukar, he committed a war crime against the civilian population that killed two people. In recent years, several people from Kosovo have been arrested in Serbia over suspected or alleged war crimes, and some were later released from detention.

The War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office also handles cases unrelated to Kosovo. We previously reported on one of them, an indictment for a war crime in Reznik, where the defendant remains in detention.

Arrest coincides with excavation in Zubin Potok

In terms of timing, the Batrovci arrest falls in the middle of an excavation in Zubin Potok, where authorities are searching for the remains of Albanians taken away in April 1999. Three Serbs from that municipality were arrested around the same time, also on suspicion of war crimes.

War crimes from 1999 remain an open point of contention in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. The European Union has previously reacted to an earlier arrest of a Kosovo Albanian, arguing that under the 2015 judiciary agreement, Serbia committed not to launch criminal investigations or proceedings over alleged war crimes committed in Kosovo unless requested by Kosovo authorities. Such a provision does not appear explicitly in the publicly available versions of that agreement, and no further clarification has come from Brussels.

Until a final verdict, the suspect is presumed innocent.