Serbs deny responsibility for deaths of 3 Americans
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Serb officials denied responsibility on
Wednesday for the killing of three Americans of ethnic Albanian origin
whose bodies were found last month in a mass grave.
The bodies of brothers Agron, Mehmet and Yli Bytyqi - all from New York
City - were discovered in June, on top of a mass grave on the fringe of
a police compound in Petrovo Selo, about 120 miles east of the capital
Belgrade. They were blindfolded, their hands were tied with wire and
they had shotgun wounds to the head.
The grave was one of several found recently that contain bodies of about
800 ethnic Albanians. They have been linked to former President Slobodan
Milosevic's campaign to cover up atrocities in Kosovo by burying victims
far from the Serbian province.
The brothers worked in New York pizza business before they joined the
Atlantic Brigade, about 400 Albanian-Americans who fought Serbian forces
in Kosovo during Yugoslavia's 1998-1999 crackdown on the province's
ethnic Albanian majority.
They were sentenced by a court on June 26, 1999, to 15 days in prison
for illegally crossing into Yugoslavia from Albania.
Aleksandar Djordjevic, former warden of the prison in Prokuplje, a town
130 miles south of Belgrade where the Bytyqis were last held, denied any
wrongdoing.
"While they were in prison, the brothers were treated according to the
law," Djordjevic said Wednesday. "Shortly before their time was up,
plainclothes policemen came to take custody of them and they were
released from jail."
"The Bytyqis were released four days before their sentence expired,"
Djordjevic said. Under Yugoslav law, whenever foreign citizens who
entered Yugoslavia illegally are released from detention, police escort
them out of the country.
But Police Chief Milisav Vucicevic of Toplica county, where the release
occurred, denied any knowledge of the case.
"I don't even know who these people are," Vucicevic said of the Bytyqis.
"They are totally unknown to my sector."
The bodies of the three men were atop 13 others that were more badly
decomposed, suggesting the grave was reopened to hide their remains.
After pressure from the United States, Serbia's new, pro-democracy
authorities stepped up efforts to investigate their killings.
On Tuesday, Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic called the case
"an exceptionally serious crime." The American ambassador to Yugoslavia,
William Montgomery, relayed the State Department's demand for a
"thorough investigation."
The brothers were killed after the end of the U.S.-led, 78-day NATO
bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which prompted Milosevic to
withdraw forces from Kosovo.
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