Nearly three decades after the war in Kosovo, which left about 10,000 civilian victims, only 77 people have been convicted of war crimes by local and international judicial institutions. The Pristina Foundation Court’s data shows that between January 2024 and September 1, 2026, 17 subjects have been resolved, 13 of them with condemned convictions. Among the main obstacles to establishing justice remain the lack of judicial co-operation between Kosovo and Serbia, as well as its refusal to hand over persons suspected of war crimes.
The crimes committed by Serbian forces during the war in Kosovo left thousands of victims and families destroyed, which continue to seek justice.
Massacres, the killings of civilians, the forced deportations and crimes against the vulnerable population are part of a serious chapter in Kosovo’s history, for which justice has yet to give full answers.
Nearly three decades after the war, investigations and judgments on crimes committed continue. The Foundation Court records in Pristina show that in the Special Department, between January 1st, 2024 and September 1, 2026, 17 subjects, 13 of them with condemnations, while 19 remain pending resolution.
But beyond court numbers and statistics, there remains the question of full crime investigation, the dawning of the victims’ fate and bringing those responsible to justice.
One of the developments that has contributed to the increase in the number of prosecuted cases in recent years is the legal opportunity for developing trials in absentia, enabled through changes to the Penal Procedure Code. This enables justice institutions to develop judicial procedures against accused persons who are not present in Kosovo.
According to Amer Aliaj of the Fund for Humanitarian Law, this legal opportunity has contributed to the increase in the number of war crimes charges, enabling more cases to be handled by justice institutions.
With the amendments of the Criminal Procedure Code have begun to set up charges for prosecutions in absentia, and in the last two years, we have a large number of acts in the absence of war crimes this legal change has influenced me to have, a greater number of cases that are prosecuted at the Constitutional Court in Pristina, as well as about 10 defendants or suspects suspected of war crimes in Kosovo… says Amer Alija, of the Humani Law Fund.
According to him, one of the main obstacles to lighting war crimes and establishing justice remains the lack of judicial co-operation between Kosovo and Serbia. The latter continues to refuse surrender to justice of persons suspected of war crimes.
He says that, despite the work of local and international judicial institutions since the end of the war, the number of convicted persons remains very small in proportion to the number of civilian victims.
Since the end of the war to date from all judicial institutions, whether The Hague be Kosovo or Unfriend, Eulexi has been sentenced to about 77 war crimes perpetrators and on the other hand we have about 10 thousand civilian victims, so very little has been done in this direction to offer justice to the families of war victims…
The crimes committed by Serbian forces during the war in Kosovo left thousands of victims and families destroyed. Even nearly three decades after the war ended, justice for many remains elusive.
Source Layer: RTKLive