The Court, in this judgement, modified a previous sentencing. The criminal case being appealed concerned an incident that took place on 8 January 2013. A group of 11 SOU officers were assigned to escort 10 detainees of Serbian ethnicity from the Detention Centre in Pristina to the Minor Offences Court. The detainees were collected at the reception area of the Detention Centre and escorted to the parking lot. While being escorted, some detainees were hit and kicked. The detainees were then slapped and hit in the vehicles while driving to the Minor Offences Court. Further, some detainees were hit and kicked in the toilet of the Minor Offences Court.

The eleven defendants were charged with 19 counts of the criminal offences of Assault, Threat and Mistreatment during Exercise of Official Duty or Public Authorization.

The Basic Court of Pristina found 6 defendants guilty for several counts of Assault, Threat and Mistreatment during Exercise of Official Duty or Public Authorization. They were acquitted of the remainder of the charges, as it was not proven ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that they committed the criminal offences. The other 5 five defendants were acquitted of all charges.

The defendants appealed the judgement at the Court of Appeals, claiming amongst other things that the criminal offence of Assault is already contained within the criminal offence of Mistreatment during Exercise of Official Duty or Public Authorization.  The Basic Court of Pristina judgement was modified and the defendants were acquitted for the criminal offence of Assault and their sentences lowered accordingly.

The Court of Appeals agreed that the criminal offence of Mistreatment during Exercise of Official Duty or Public Authorization subsumes the criminal offence of Assault, because the two criminal offences share the same core offence – mistreatment of someone and applying force against someone have the same nature. The defendants were also forbidden from exercising public administration or public service functions as punishment. However, the Court of Appeals considered that the imposition of this extra punishment was not necessary to achieve the purpose of the criminal sanction. Therefore, the accessory punishment of prohibition of exercising public administration or public service functions was removed in relation to the 6 sentenced defendants. The appeal of the SPRK was rejected.