Shyqyri Syla, Head Prosecutor of Mitrovica Basic Prosecution, confirmed for BIRN that Oliver Ivanovic died after being shot with four bullets in front of his party HQ on Tuesday morning.
Two more sources confirmed Ivanovic's death.
Kosovo Police didn’t issue any statements so far.
Ivanovic’s lawyer, Nebojsa Vlajic, confirmed to BIRN that his client died in hospital at 9:30am.
“He has been shot in the upper part of his body, and in the back, early in the morning, when he was in front of his office [in Kosovska Mitrovica],” Vlajic said.
He added that the investigation by Kosovo police is ongoing, so he did not have any more information about the shooting.
“I still don’t know what are our next move will be,” Vlajic said.
A burned car was found near the northern Kosovo settlement of Zvecan I Vogel/Mali Zvecan, which according to BIRN sources was used by Ivanovic’s assassins.
Ivanovic, a former Serbian government official and head of a Kosovo Serb political party called Freedom, Democracy, Justice, was currently stranding trial for war crimes for allegedly ordering the murder of ethnic Albanians in Mitrovica in 1999.
The President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, has strongly condemned the murder of Oliver Ivanovic.
"I call on the justice authorities to expose the circumstances of his assassination as soon as possible and the perpetrators of the crime come to justice," said President Thaci.
He has appealed to citizens of all communities in the north of the country to cooperate with the justice authorities.
Politicians in the Balkans frequently accuse the EU of double standards in its dealings with the region. Do they have a point?
In the months-long protests in Serbia, those marching every weekend are not all demonstrating for purely political reasons – but also to raise their voices over other burning everyday problems.