Four years after the murder of Oliver Ivanovic, one of the leaders of the Kosovo Serbs, the final truth about this crime is no closer than the previous ones - perhaps even further.
On January 16, 2018, shortly after eight in the morning, Ivanovic was shot in the back with five bullets in Kosovska Mitrovica - he succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.
A lot of time has passed since then, and the direct perpetrators and perpetrators are still unknown.
"The feeling is very painful... Four too long years are behind us, and we still don't know anything," Aleksandar Ivanovic, nephew of Oliver Ivanovic, told the BBC in Serbian.
"I always think if this could have been avoided in any way, which dark forces had an interest in removing Oliver and what their reach is when for the fourth year they manage to avoid legal sanctions for what they did," he adds.
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The last trial before the Kosovo judiciary it started in July 2021, but there is no cooperation with the institutions in Belgrade, say BBC interlocutors, while political leaders hardly mention the importance of discovering the killer anymore.
In February 2020, the Kosovo Special Prosecutor's Office charged a criminal group allegedly led by Zvonko Veselinović and Milan Radoičić, who are often referred to as "controversial businessmen" from the north of Kosovo, for the crime.
The court process, finally launched in July 2021, is being conducted against six people accused of being members of that group, but not against Veselinović and Radoičić, because Kosovo laws do not allow proceedings to be conducted in absentia.
After Ivanović's murder, his party Freedom, democracy, justice, which was the last serious political rival of the Serbian List in North Mitrovica, ceased to exist.
Špetim Gashi, a Kosovo political analyst, believes that the murder of Ivanovic "silenced the opposition voices".
"People are still talking about who is responsible for the murder, but not like before... It's quieter than before," Gashi told the BBC in Serbian.
Tatjana Lazarevic, editor of the KosSev portal, says that in that city, time can be measured "before and after the murder of Ivanovic".
"However, in the last two years, it seems that the memory of him and that murder is fading," he says.
The hunt for the killers
If the court process that should lead to those responsible for Ivanović's murder could be summed up in one word, it would be - disposal.
There was a long wait for the start of the trial, the indictment was changed several times and the whole process stalled for more than three years.
The third version of the case finally came before the court in July 2021.
Among the defendants are four members of the Kosovo Police Service - Nedeljko Spasojević, Dragiša Marković, Žarko Jovanović and Rade Basara, Oliver Ivanović's secretary Silvana Arsović and Marko Rošić.
They are charged with participation in an organized criminal group or its organization, abuse of position or official powers, assistance in the commission of serious murder, unauthorized possession of weapons, disclosure of official secrets and falsification of evidence, which they have repeatedly denied.
"Up to this moment, that procedure does not provide answers to two key questions - who committed the murder and the most important one, who was so bothered by Oliver that he finally decided to liquidate him," says Aleksandar Ivanović.
Zvonko Veselinović and Milan Radoičić, who are designated as the leaders of the criminal group, are not available to the Kosovo authorities.
A warrant was issued for Radoičić due to the suspicion that he participated in the murder of Ivanović The Basic Court in Pristina withdrew in March 2021.
Radoičić, who is also the vice-president of the Serbian List, is in central Serbia, and he also attended meetings of political representatives of Kosovo Serbs with the state leadership of Serbia, as well as events of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party in Serbia.
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In the meantime, official Belgrade has repeatedly announced the discovery of the killers of Oliver Ivanovic.
"Slowly but surely, our investigation into the murder of Oliver Ivanovic is progressing and we will be able to reveal the name of the perpetrator in the coming period." said the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, in March 2019.
A few months later he said that Radoičić "is not a flower", but that he did not participate in the murder of Ivanovic in any way.
Any connection to that murder Radoičić also denied it.
Rada Trajković, an opposition politician from Kosovo, told the BBC in Serbian that Ivanovic's case was not resolved because of "the connection between Serbian and Kosovo security, political and state structures".
"Joint forces have blocked the process, the result of which should be the truth about Oliver's murder," Trajković believes.
Aleksandar Ivanović adds that to find the killers "first of all, political will is needed", instead of which "we are witnessing a political fight between Belgrade and Pristina".
"But I am convinced that at some point a political environment will be created where solving Oliver's murder will be a priority issue," he says.
Where is it footage of the murder?
In the public of Serbia and Kosovo, it is often mentioned that the footage from the security cameras on the day of Oliver Ivanovic's murder was never found.
Aleksandar Ivanovic says that his family has been insisting on this issue since day one.
"The whole country is following the case of the unfortunate young man from Croatia who disappeared in Belgrade and has the opportunity to see the importance of those security cameras," says Ivanovic.
"Those recordings of the route where that young man was moving are the key evidence for the reconstruction of events from which it could be concluded what actually happened to him...
"How come there are no such recordings in Oliver's case?"
In addition, he says, it is disturbing to know that Serbs are in control of those cameras, that Serbs make up the local police and that Serbian security services operate in that area.
"That's why the question arises - who is powerful enough to remove all those recordings", says Ivanovic.
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Life in Mitrovica, four years later
In the last few years, the most important issue in the life of Kosovska Mitrovica was primarily the fight against Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the situation stabilized and life continued to flow.
"In the first two years after the murder, when you pass the street where Ivanovic was killed, somehow there was a connection between that whole tragedy and life in Mitrovica," says Lazarević.
"However, the undivided impression of people here is that that image has somehow faded - now it has become actualized again, before the fourth anniversary, and maybe it is slowly coming back," he adds.
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During that time, he says, life in Kosovska Mitrovica "blooms and goes on".
"It's a completely new life, there is a large number of young people, they come to Mitrovica from parts of Kosovo south of the Ibar, rural areas in the north, and even cities in Serbia," he says.
"They have privileges through various programs, and it is rare that someone is not flattered in one of the state institutions in one or the other system," he adds.
The case of Oliver Ivanovic, he says, is like people's attitude towards Kosovo in general - no one is interested until something happens, and it comes to the fore.
The trial and the indictment, he adds, did not surprise anyone in the north of Kosovo.
"All that is written in the indictment are bazaar stories that you have been hearing for years, only now they have been put on paper," says Lazarević.
"However, as far as the Serbian side is concerned, almost everyone thinks that the indictment is thin, confused, unclear and that the process is going sloppily and slowly".
Politics in the north of Kosovo, four years later
Civic initiative Freedom, democracy, justice Olivera Ivanovic was the last serious political rival of the Serbian List in North Mitrovica.
Ivanović last participated in the elections for the mayor of Mitrovica in 2017, when a negative campaign was conducted against him in the media close to the Serbian authorities.
He won then 16 percent of the votes.
Serbian officials, such as the then director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Đurić, said that the vote for him was actually "a vote against the interests of the Serbian people and a vote for breaking Serbian unity".
In the meantime, Đurić became Serbia's ambassador to America, but until the end of 2020, he attended the meetings of the state leadership of Serbia and Kosovo Serbs that were held in Belgrade.
Before the 2017 elections, Ivanovic's car was set on fire, and a few months after those elections, he was killed in front of his party's premises.
Since then, residents of North Mitrovica have voted for local government three more times.
In the elections of 2019, 2020 and 2021, the Serbian List had no competitors and won absolute power with about 90 percent of the votes of the voters.
The SDP civic initiative did not participate in the last extraordinary local elections.
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Špetim Gaši, a political analyst from Pristina, believes that the murder of Oliver Ivanovic "silenced the opposition voices" in the north of Mitrovica.
"There is still speculation about who is behind the murder, whether someone is hiding evidence, what about street cameras, who is hiding it, but people are more cautious...
"They don't talk about it so much in public," says Gashi.
He says he has known Ivanovic for more than ten years.
"He was a man of compromise, always open to such solutions, he did not look for conflicts in order to grow on them," he states.
However, he adds, his memory is "somewhat controversial" among the Albanian community because of the "Guardians of the Bridges".
It is about a group of people from northern Mitrovica, where Serbs live, who on the bridge over the river Ibar, which divides the city, prevented the authorities from the southern part, where Albanians live, from entering the north.
"But that perception is changing, most people say that he was a man of compromise," he says.
And the Serbian community also sees Ivanović somewhat controversially, according to Gaši - as someone who led the opposition and was part of the Democratic Party government.
From 2008 to 2012, Ivanovic was State Secretary in the former Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija.
"But even that is changing... They see him mostly as a man of the street who became a politician and represented the voice of the Serbs, without being influenced by either Belgrade or Pristina".
What next?
Gashi believes that the case "will be difficult to solve", and Trajković that something could change if the international community is more involved and if a video of the assassination appears.
"I deeply believe that the truth and the completion of that process would result in the departure of Aleksandar Vučić from power," he says.
When asked what will happen next, Tatjana Lazarevic says that she does not know and that "the bitter history of Kosovo has shown that everything can change easily, spontaneously or not".
"You never know anything for sure in Kosovo," he says.
However, Aleksandar Ivanovic points out that one thing is certain - his family will continue to look for those responsible.
"We will not let Oliver be forgotten," he says.
They are encouraged, he adds, by the fact that they are not alone in the fight.
"Obviously, people are aware of the link between crime and politics, the abnormal conditions in which we live," Ivanović said.
As he states, that is why it is important to "stand in the way of the dark forces".
"One gets the impression that many people are not satisfied with solving Oliver's murder...
"And if that issue is not resolved, then the only logical question is - who is next to be shot?"
Fourteen years after the declaration of independence, Kosovo was recognized by about 100 countries. However, the exact number is not known.
Pristina cites a figure of 117 countries, and in Belgrade they say that there are far fewer.
Among the countries of the European Union that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania, and when it comes to world powers, they are Russia, China, Brazil and India.
Since 2008, Kosovo has become a member of several international organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank and FIFA, but not the United Nations.
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