Oliver Ivanovic was director of the state company “Feronikl”, at the time of the commission of war crimes in Kosovo in April 1999, and it has been found that he was not a leader of the paramilitary group that carried out the crime. Ivanovic did not issue an order for the execution of the crime, and he was not directly involved in the killings. These are the conclusions of the Trial Chamber of the Municipal Court in northern Mitrovica, which sentenced Oliver Ivanovic to nine years in prison for alleged war crimes.
These will constitute the key arguments of the defense, said one of the lawyers from Ivanovic’s defense team, lawyer Ljubomir Pantovic, because it has only been established that on that day, Ivanovic was present at the scene of the crime, and that he was “in a blue uniform and armed”.
According to Pantovic, these facts contradicted the judgment which was verbally given by the President of the Panel of Judges, Roksana Komsa, on the day of the verdict.
‘The reasoning of the judgment gives us hope for the success of the appeal. The judge said that the Panel has found the fact that he did not order the execution of a crime to be true’ Pantovic told us, ‘Ivanovic, therefore is not guilty, so I wonder how the court drew conclusions on his guilt from these facts, because the guilty verdict and the conclusions contradict one another.
