Prosecution Summons Srpska Lista Leadership for Questioning
Five Srpska Lista officials, including deputy leader Igor Simic, have received summons from the Basic Prosecution in North Mitrovica to appear as defendants, not witnesses, on August 13.
The Basic Prosecution in North Mitrovica has summoned five officials of Srpska Lista to give statements on August 13, and to do so as defendants rather than witnesses. The party released the summonses itself, saying its people are accused of forging documentation.
The summonses went to:
- Igor Simic, deputy president of Srpska Lista
- Ivan Zaporosac
- Ivan Todosijevic
- Zoran Todic
- Vasilije Tomasevic
The distinction between witness and defendant carries the most weight here. A witness is called in to say what they know, a defendant is called in because prosecutors are linking them to a criminal offense. In similar proceedings so far, Kosovo authorities have mostly arrested or questioned officials lower down the chain, people from institutions that operated under Serbia’s system. This is the first time the very top of a party holding nine of the ten parliamentary seats reserved for the Serb community in Pristina has been summoned.
What are the officials accused of?
According to Srpska Lista’s statement, the charge is alleged forgery of documentation. The party says the real reason behind the prosecution is that its officials led institutions Pristina does not recognize, institutions that operated under the system of the Republic of Serbia in the north of Kosovo.
What is known about the summonses so far comes only from the party’s own statement. The Basic Prosecution in North Mitrovica has not made its version public, a pattern that has followed earlier proceedings of this kind, where information has reached the public only in pieces.
“This is part of a broader plan aimed at persecuting the Serbian people and continuing the institutional pressure on everyone who stands by their people and defends their right to survive,” Srpska Lista said in its statement.
The party ties the case to the moment, two years ago, when Kosovo police moved into institutions that had operated under Serbia’s system in the north. That, the party says, is when the proceeding was opened.
How this date came about
The chronology starts in November 2022. Serbs in the north, led by Srpska Lista in municipal governments and in the Kosovo Assembly, collectively walked out of Kosovo’s institutions, police, judiciary and local government. The trigger was the license plate crisis, and the condition set for their return was the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities. That condition still has not been met.
In the period that followed, Kosovo authorities took over or shut down a series of institutions that had run under Serbia’s system. These included temporary municipal bodies, administrative offices, social welfare centers, branches of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, Serbia’s postal service and public utility companies. After last year’s local elections, which Srpska Lista did not boycott, its representatives returned to Kosovo’s local government system and took power in four municipalities in the north. Institutions running under Serbia’s system mostly did not resume work in the north, moving across the administrative line instead.
This is not the first case Kosovo’s judiciary has brought against people who ran such institutions. Serbian News has previously reported on the detention a court ordered after the third arrest of Serbs in Kosovo, and that string of cases shares the same starting point as these summonses: the operation of institutions Pristina considers illegal.
Belgrade’s response
The Office for Kosovo and Metohija reacted the same day. The Office’s director, Petar Petkovic, posted on X.
“Kurti stops at nothing in his drive to break the Serbs and leave them without their legitimate representatives, so that together with his Rasic he can continue the terror against our people,” Petkovic wrote.
Petkovic said the move will not succeed, and that the case against Srpska Lista’s leadership proves the party is a target for Pristina precisely because it works in the interest of the Serbian people.
The political weight behind the summonses
Srpska Lista won 5.40 percent of the vote in the June 7 election, taking nine of the ten mandates reserved for the Serb community. If the case against the five officials moves beyond questioning, the question of their mandates and positions would open at a moment when the Serb community in Kosovo has no other party with a comparable result.
The next step already has a date. The five men summoned for August 13 are due to appear before the Basic Prosecution in North Mitrovica, and only then will it become clear whether the case stops at the defendants’ statements or moves toward an indictment.
