More than 700 forensic cases—including approximately 300 suspicious deaths and active homicide investigations—remain stalled in Kosovo due to a severe, multi-year shutdown of vital diagnostic services at the Institute of Forensic Medicine (IML).
The crisis began in 2023 when the institute’s headquarters in Pristina was hit by two consecutive fires, completely paralyzing its laboratory and X-ray departments.
Key Forensic Services Paralyzed
While pathologists have continued performing autopsies in a hastily improvised room, the lack of functional facilities has made it impossible to run specialized secondary testing. This has left families and prosecutors waiting indefinitely for answers in critical criminal cases.
The closed facilities have halted three essential branches of post-mortem investigation:
- Toxicology: Screening for poisons, drug overdoses, or chemical substances.
- Histopathology: Examining tissue samples under a microscope to find underlying diseases or trauma.
- Radiography (X-Ray): Using imaging to locate bullets, shrapnel, or hidden bone fractures.
The Growing Judicial Backlog
The prolonged laboratory outage has created a major bottleneck for Kosovo’s justice system. Prosecutors cannot officially close files, file final indictments, or proceed to trial without finalized autopsy reports.
| Prosecutorial Office | Confirmed Pending Autopsies |
| Pristina Basic Prosecution | ~100 cases |
| Special Prosecution Office (SPRK) | ~100 cases |
| Other Regional Prosecutions | ~500 cases |
| Total Backlog | Over 700 cases |
An End in Sight?
According to Agron Thaçi, the acting director of the IML, the years-long renovation process is finally nearing its end, with construction expected to wrap up by next week.
However, opening the doors will not bring immediate relief. Thaçi warned that once physical construction is finished, technicians must run extensive testing and calibration cycles on the highly sensitive laboratory equipment before any real samples can be processed.
Once the systems are fully operational, the institute plans to prioritize the oldest backlogged cases to help clear the massive judicial queue.
The Political Undercurrent: The fires in 2023 occurred shortly after a highly publicized scandal in December 2022, when 12 toxicological samples belonging to deceased political activist Astrit Dehari briefly went missing. While the samples were later located, the Ministry of Justice has repeatedly declined to release its official investigative reports regarding the subsequent fires, which remain under active investigation by the Special Prosecution Office.
