A court in Pristina has sentenced in absentia a former member of Serbia’s State Security Service to 15 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population.

In a press statement, the Basic Court in Pristina announced that it found the defendant — identified only by the initials S.F. — guilty of committing the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population.

The prosecution accused him of forcibly taking a doctor, identified by the initials H.Sh., into a vehicle along with two other unidentified officials in 1998 on the Drenas-Pristina road, and “bringing him to the State Security building in Pristina, where he was beaten and tortured.”

“Since that day, his fate remains unknown,” according to the indictment.

S.F. has the right to appeal the Basic Court’s ruling at the Kosovo Court of Appeals.

Trials in absentia are permitted in Kosovo following amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code made in 2022. However, such trials are only allowed if the prosecution and the court have exhausted all efforts to secure the accused’s presence.

Still, the law provides that individuals tried in absentia are entitled to an unconditional retrial if and when they are arrested.

According to the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, between the entry into force of the law on trials in absentia and February 2025, 50 indictments have been filed in absentia against 73 members of Serbian forces suspected of committing war crimes in Kosovo.

The first verdict in absentia was delivered in December 2024 in the case of Čedomir Aksic, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population.

During the 1998–99 Kosovo war, over 13,000 civilians — mostly ethnic Albanians — were killed, and thousands of others went missing. Around 1,600 people, primarily Albanians, remain unaccounted for.

Over the years, Kosovo’s judicial authorities have charged or convicted several individuals for war crimes.