More than 28 years after the attack on the Jashari family compound in Prekaz, Kosovo prosecutors have identified former Serbian Special Operations Unit commander Milorad Ulemek, known as “Legija,” among those accused in the war-crimes case.
Kosovo Special Prosecutor Valdet Gashi said Ulemek was the commander of the Serbian Special Operations Unit involved in the operation and alleged that the assault on the Jashari family home was carried out at Ulemek’s specific request.
Gashi made the disclosure while presenting details of the indictment against 35 individuals accused of war crimes against civilians during the March 5–7, 1998 attack in Prekaz.
According to the prosecutor, several Serbian security structures were involved in the operation, including the Public Security Department, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Security Department and, within the latter, Serbia’s Special Operations Unit.
“This Special Operations Unit was led by Milorad Ulemek ‘Legija’,” Gashi said.
He went further, alleging that Ulemek had a specific obligation and had personally requested that the home of Shaban Jashari be attacked.
“He had the obligation and the task, and at his special request, to directly attack the house of the family of Shaban Jashari. That is also what happened on the ground,” Gashi said.
The prosecutor said identifying the individual units involved had been one of the most difficult aspects of the investigation, particularly given the passage of time.
Investigators now say they have identified 35 individuals holding senior command positions within Serbia’s Special Police structures, based on material and personal evidence gathered during the investigation.
Gashi said the evidence also established which Serbian units participated in the operation, their positions during the attack, the activities attributed to individual defendants and the weapons arsenal used.
According to the prosecution, 26 civilians were killed during the attack, including children, women and elderly people. The youngest victim identified in the indictment was five years old.
The case marks a major development in Kosovo’s long-running effort to establish individual responsibility for crimes committed in Prekaz.
Ulemek is already serving a lengthy prison sentence in Serbia for several crimes, including the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić and other serious offences. A Serbian court rejected his parole request in 2024.
However, his alleged role in the attack on the Jashari family is now being examined through a separate judicial process in Kosovo.
The indictment represents an attempt to move the Prekaz case beyond decades of unresolved responsibility by identifying not only the structures involved, but also the individuals allegedly responsible for specific actions.
The allegations will ultimately have to be tested before a court, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
But the message from Kosovo’s prosecution is clear:
The investigation has put names, units and command structures behind an attack that for decades remained one of the country’s most painful unresolved war-crimes cases.
And at the centre of the prosecution’s allegations is a former commander of Serbia’s Special Operations Unit — Milorad Ulemek “Legija.”
