Ekrem Bajrović has once again been found guilty in a retrial and sentenced to 12 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population in the village of Saradran, in the municipality of Istog, Kosovo.
Bajrović was initially sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by the Basic Court in Pristina in July 2024 on the same charges.
However, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial after determining that several witnesses had testified they had previously given statements to UNMIK and EULEX regarding the case, but those statements had not been included in the case file.
According to the indictment, Bajrović, serving as a police officer at the Gurrakoc Police Station under Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and acting together with other Serbian police officers, stopped a convoy of Albanian civilians in Saradran on May 8, 1999, as they were fleeing toward Albania.
The indictment alleges that he and others separated 16 men from the convoy and took them to a house where they were beaten with blunt objects and subjected to abuse while being taunted with the words: “Where is NATO? Where is the KLA?”
Prosecutors further allege that, together with Serbian paramilitary forces, the civilians were then taken one by one to another house where they were executed. According to the prosecution, 15 people were killed, while one survivor, identified by the initials N.E., lived after sustaining a severe facial gunshot wound and being left among the bodies of the victims.
Bajrović is also accused of participating, on May 7, 1999, in the arrest and abuse of 84 Albanian civilians in Staradran, Istog. According to the indictment, the men were separated from the rest of the civilian convoy, stripped of their money and valuables, and taken to a building in Gurrakoc, where they were allegedly subjected to inhumane abuse and torture.
The following day, May 8, 1999, the civilians were transferred to the Gurrakoc Police Station, with the indictment alleging that the convoy was led by the accused, Ekrem Bajrović.
