A court in Pristina sentenced two men to life in prison for a brazen attack by ethnic Serbs on a police unit in northern Kosovo in September 2023 that left one police officer and three of the attackers dead.
Blagoje Spasojevic and Vladimir Tolic were handed life sentences by the Basic Court in Pristina on April 24, while giving another member of the group, Dusan Maksimovic, 30 years in prison for what Judge Ngadhnjim Arrni called a "well-organized plan" that "attempted to detach the northern part of Kosovo's territory and join it to Serbia."
The attack came months after talks backed by Washington and Brussels between Kosovo and Serbia collapsed, and relations between the bitter neighbors and rivals have only deteriorated further.
Belgrade and its ally Russia still refuse to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty since a 2008 declaration of independence that followed a decade of UN administration after a bloody ethnically fueled war.
Kosovo's acting president, Albulena Haxhiu, said the verdict against the three defendants was "proof that the attack on the Kosovo Police, the constitutional order, and the security of our country will not go unpunished."
"However, justice for the terrorist attack in Banjska does not end here. It will be complete only when all those responsible, led by Milan Radoicic, are brought to justice," she said, referring to the leader of the attack, an ethnic Serb from Kosovo who is now in Serbia.
During the attack, around 30 ethnic Serb gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Banjska, a village near the border with Serbia, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku, an ethnic Albanian Kosovar police officer.
The attackers then made a stand in an Orthodox monastery and exchanged fire with Kosovar forces. Three gunmen were ultimately killed.
The Serb List, the main Kosovo Serb party backed by Belgrade, condemned the verdict, saying the defendants had been sentenced without "valid evidence," without individual responsibility being established, and without a clear explanation of the actions attributed to them. Radoicic was a former vice president of the Serb List.
The Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo described the verdict as “draconian,” and accused the court of acting "under direct political pressure."
Kosovo's Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said the country had dismantled what he called criminal and paramilitary structures in the north, but added that Serbia must still be held accountable for its alleged political, financial, and logistical role in the attack.
He said the verdict does not bring back Bunjaku, but is "a step toward justice" for his family, colleagues, and Kosovo's citizens. Justice for Banjska, he added, would be complete only when all those responsible are brought before court, "starting with Milan Radoicic."
