STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bodies of three Americans in Serb mass grave - rpt WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - Bodies of three Americans of ethnic Albanian origin were found in a mass grave in Serbia last week, the Washington Post newspaper reported in its Sunday edition. The men, all brothers born in Illinois, appeared to have been murdered by policemen during the violence in and around the Serbian province of Kosovo in the spring and summer of 1999, according to the report. They are the first Americans to be found in a Serbian mass grave. Hands ties, heads covered with black hoods and dressed in civilian clothes, Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyqi, ages 24, 23 and 21 at the time of their deaths, were shot at close range, the paper reported. Their bodies, which were discovered by Serbian police investigators last week, were thrown into a pit dug in the Yugoslav national forest near the Serbian town of Petrovo Selo, the report said. Bodies of 13 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo were also found at the site, which is close to a special police training center 120 miles (190 km) east of the capital of Belgrade, it said. A second grave nearby contains 59 bodies. The Bytyqis had worked with their father as painters and made pizza on Long Island before joining the fight in the Kosovo war with the so-called Atlantic Brigade, a group of about 400 Albanian Americans who volunteered to join the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, the Post reported. William Montgomery, the U.S. chief of mission in Yugoslavia, told the Washington Post that the United States would insist on a full investigation by authorities. "Believe me, this is going to be a very important case for us," Montgomery was quoted as saying. "We need to get real information from the Yugoslav authorities. We are going to insist they do a full investigation." Several times, Montgomery said U.S. officials sought information about the three brothers but were told by the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry that the brothers had been imprisoned after the war ended. The report did not cite a clear motive for the killings but it said circumstantial evidence raised the possibility of a revenge killing by policemen, who may have been angry over the United States' role in pressing Western nations to intervene in Kosovo to stop human rights abuses committed by Yugoslav security forces against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. 00:11 07-15-01 ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
