Serb placed in one-month pre-trial detention over alleged war crime

After the detention hearing, Stanković’s lawyer, Jovana Filipović, stated that Zoran Stanković came to the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija to testify in a civil lawsuit.

She emphasized that in the criminal case, the alleged victim of the war crime is the same person who, according to her, is the plaintiff in the civil proceedings.

Filipović highlighted that the criminal complaint against Stanković was filed yesterday, the same day he was arrested.

“He is accused of committing a war crime, and what is important in this case is that the criminal complaint was filed precisely yesterday, on the day he was arrested. This raises the question of who could have put him on the stop list if no investigation had been conducted against him before,” Filipović said.

She added that Stanković had freely traveled to Kosovo and Metohija a week before his arrest.

“All these facts indicate that the person who reported him for a war crime may have other motives unrelated to uncovering a war crime, because, as I mentioned earlier, no criminal proceedings had been conducted against him previously, and he was freely entering Kosovo a week before his arrest,” she stated.

Zoran Stanković is 69 years old and a displaced person from Kosovo and Metohija residing in Kruševac.

According to a statement from the so-called Kosovo police and prosecution, “the accused Z.S., as part of a Serbian paramilitary group, is suspected of committing war crimes in the village of Matičane​, Municipality of Pristina, during 1998–1999.”