4 Serbs in Kosovo jailed in the killing of a moderate Serb politician in 2018

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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A Kosovo court on Friday sentenced four ethnic Serbs to four to 10 years in jail for the killing of a moderate Serb leader.

The Pristina court ruled that the defendants were part of an organized crime ring and had targeted the victim because of his moderate politics.

The defendants were not present when the verdict was read. Five other defendants remain at large.

Since 2011 they had been operating in northern Kosovo and had influence on police, local authorities and public enterprises there, according to the charges.

Oliver Ivanovic, 64, was gunned down in front of his party office headquarters in the Serb-dominated northern part of the Kosovo town of Mitrovica in January 2018.

He was one of the key politicians in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, a former Serbian province where tensions remain high, and was critical of the Serb influence in Kosovo’s Serb minority.

A Kosovo court had convicted Ivanovic of war crimes during the 1998-99 war. That verdict was overturned and a retrial had been underway.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Serbia's government refuses to recognize it.