A Kosovo court in a retrial on Monday sentenced Dardan Krivaca to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of an 18-year-old woman in August 2021, while his accomplice got 15 years.

Ferizaj/Urosevac Basic Court on Monday sentenced Dardan Krivaca to life imprisonment for the aggravated murder of 18-year-old Marigona Osmani in August 2021, in a retrial.

Another defendant, Arber Sejdiu, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for assisting the murder. Both men were again acquitted of rape and assisting rape.

The verdict explained that Krivaca hit “her with a black wooden stick on different parts of the body, causing great physical and mental injuries”, which led to her death.

The court found that Osmani died “from mechanical asphyxia and hemorrhagic shock as a result of the fracture of the lower jaw, fracture of the right and left ribs, left clavicle, neck rings, epidural and subdural bleeding in the brain and the cerebrum, partial severing of the cord in the neck”.

Sejdiu was present in the apartment when the murder occurred, talking to Krivaca, and even went out of the apartment to bring them food.

Osmani’s body was left near the door of the local hospital in Ferizaj/Urosevac by the two men who immediately drove away.

The prosecution said that she had been abused for two consecutive days before she died.

Police identified Sejdiu and Krivaca from the hospital’s security camera footage.

The court issued the same sentences in August 2023, but the Court of Appeal returned the case for retrial after assessing that two provisions of the verdict were unclear and not in harmony with the law. The first provision of the first verdict had acquitted Krivaca of rape and the second had acquitted Sejdiu of assisting rape.

On Monday, the judge said the evidence did not prove rape because there was neither video evidence from the apartment’s security cameras nor medical evidence. The autopsy report also did not conclude that the victim was raped.

The decision can be appealed.