Three Americans found in a mass grave in Serbia

The story leading up to the discovery of documents on the bodies of Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi in a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, Serbia, began on July 2, when the Albanian American Civic League held a book signing and reception in Yonkers, New York, in honor of General Wesley Clark, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe for the critical role that he played in putting a stop to Slobodan Milosevic’s decade-long genocidal march across Southeast Europe.

During the question-and-answer session that followed General Clark’s address to the 400 people in attendance, members of the Atlantic Battalion (Albanian Americans who fought with the Kosova Liberation Army) appealed to General Clark for help in determining the fate of the missing brothers, who had disappeared without a trace at the end of the war. General Clark promised to initiate an investigation by phoning U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery in Belgrade, which he did on July 3.

On July 4, former Congressman and Civic League chairman Joe DioGuardi received a phone call from Vladimir Radomirovic, an editor at the Serbian Democratic opposition paper, The Reporter. Radomirovic explained that one of the Serbian ministries had leaked him information that a mass grave had been uncovered in Petrovo Selo and that the Bytyqi brothers were believed to be among the bodies. The three were found at the top of a heap of thirteen other bodies. They were the only ones who were blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs with wire. The bullet holes in their chests indicated that they had been shot at close range. A Serbian court document, dated June 27, 1999, and listing the names of the Bytyqi brothers, was found on one of the bodies. It indicated that Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi had been sentenced to fifteen days in the Proluplje penitentiary, just north of Kosova, for entering Serbia illegally.

Radomirovic told Joe DioGuardi the incredible story of how the Bytyqi brothers ended up in Serbia and eventually were murdered by Serbian authorities. At the end of the war, in June 1999, Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli traveled from Albania to Prizren, having heard reports that their mother, Bahrije, sister, Bukerje, and brother, Fatos, had been killed. But when they arrived in Prizren, they were overjoyed to find them alive.

According to Radomirovic, they learned that their mother’s Roma neighbors-- Miroslav

-2-

Mitrovic and Ljubija and Vadzit Minushi—had helped protect her, their sister, and their brother during the war. When they met Miroslav Mitrovic and the Minushis, they implored the Bytyqi brothers to escort them to the Serbian border. Because so many Roma had collaborated with the Serbs during the war and were now potential targets for reprisal killings, they were afraid for their lives.

Grateful for what they had done for their family, Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli agreed to help them, and on the morning of June 26 they left Prizren by car and headed for the Serbian border. According to Miroslav Mitrovic, the fateful moment came when they accidentally crossed the border. At a Serbian police checkpoint in the village of Merdare near Podujevo, their Roma neighbors were cleared to enter Serbia, while the Bytyqi brothers were arrested, taken to a court in Kursumlija, tried, and sentenced to fifteen days in prison for entering Serbia without visas.

According to the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, which has called on the Serbian Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice to reveal the truth about the Bytyqi case, Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli were interrogated at the Prokuplje prison by Zoran Stankovic, a local police inspector in charge of cases involving "foreign nationals." Stankovic told the prison’s warden that he would release the brothers on July 8, four days before their sentence expired. On that day, prison logs indicate that their belongings were returned, including three Kosova Liberation Army nametags, and that at noon they were escorted out of the prison by two plainclothes policemen. An hour after they left, one of the Roma neighbors they had helped, Miroslav Mitrovic, arrived at the prison to visit them, only to learn that the brothers were allegedly en route to the Kosova border. Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli were never seen again. The Law Center appealed to the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs for information concerning their whereabouts several times in the fall of 1999, but received no response.

Vladimir Radomirovic’s story was picked up by Tony Mills of The Times of London, who then sent a correspondent to Serbia to follow the trail (his story will be released on July 15). By the time that Mills phoned Joe DioGuardi, Joe had contacted the U.S. mission in Belgrade, Congressman Ben Gilman, who subsequently put pressure on the Bush administration to pursue the story, and the State Department. As a result, U.S. officials in Belgrade began an investigation and transmitted as much information as they could obtain to the State Department. On July 12, Joe DioGuardi and the Civic League’s Balkan Affairs Adviser Shirley Cloyes met with State Department officials and urged them to immediately contact Ahmet Bytyqi, the father of the three brothers, who lives in New York, because they did not want him to learn about the fate of his sons in the press. The State Department assured them that their Consular Affairs Bureau, following existing protocols related to U.S. citizens who disappear abroad, would do so immediately. Meanwhile, DioGuardi phoned the elder Bytyqi to say that he would do everything possible to uncover the truth. DioGuardi also called Arber Muriqi, the head of the Atlantic Battalion, to inform him about the results of the investigation into the Bytyqis’ disappearance.

-3-

It will take several days, and perhaps weeks, before forensic evidence verifies the identity of the bodies. But in the interim, this tragedy raises several questions about whether the new Serbian government of Vojislav Kostunica, in an effort to ensure that Serbia would be granted large sums of foreign aid, concealed evidence from the public, from the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, and from nongovernmental organizations working to determine the fate of the missing. The tragedy also highlights the stain on the West for failing to use its leverage to secure the release of the Albanian prisoners of war, who were illegally transported to Serbia in violation of the Geneva Conventions in June 1999.

Criminal State of Serbia

The Serbian government confirmed on Tuesday that three bodies found in a mass grave in eastern Serbia are those of three Albanian-American brothers from New York.

Serbian government ministers admitted that the men were in police hands when they disappeared and called their killing an "extraordinarily serious crime." . The three brothers, who were born in Chicago, went missing in Serbia in July 1999, just days after the end of NATO's war with Yugoslavia. The have been identified as Ylli Bytyqi, 24; Agron Bytyqi, 23, and Mehmet Bytyqi, 21.

The Serbian interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, said that the men had been found blindfolded, their hands tied, and with gunshot wounds to the head. Mr. Mihajlovic admitted that their deaths appeared to have been extrajudicial. . "We are talking about an extraordinarily serious crime because we do not have sufficient evidence that they were tried at all for a criminal offense or sentenced to the death penalty," he said at a news conference in Belgrade.

The war had ended by that time, he said, and there was no longer a declared state of war in the country that could have allowed any form of court-martial. . The men were identified by an official document found in the pocket of one, signed by a Serbian judge. It showed that the three had been sentenced for a misdemeanor on June 27, 1999 and received 15 days' imprisonment for entering Yugoslavia without visas, the interior minister said.

The Serbian justice minister, Vladan Batic, also confirmed that the men had been detained in a prison in southern Serbia, near the border with Kosova. They were released less than two weeks later, on July 8, 1999. . "The police were waiting for them," Mr. Batic said, "but I do not know what happened to them after that." The men's bodies were found several hours' drive away in a mass grave in a special police forces training camp in eastern Serbia. Their bodies were recently exhumed when officials uncovered two mass graves containing mostly Kosova Albanian victims of the war.

__________________
Serbs are the Butchers of Europe! Caused one WWI.
Killed and ethnically cleansed Millions in the Balkans.
Serbs and their leaders are still proud and unapologetic.

I thought you were gonna post names like John, Steve, Jack or something like that...

__________________
Albanians are Islamo-fascists supported by Bin Laden and trained in Al-Qaeda terrorist camps.
Albanians were (chronologically): Turkish horse breeders, Hitler's little pawns, Stalin's servants and today they are Uncle Sam's "allies".
Albanians from Kosovo ethnically cleansed more than 250,000 non-Albanians: Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and others; desecrated more than 150 Christian churches and monasteries and killed thousands in cold blood.

Would their lives have had more value if their names were John, Steve, Jack?

__________________
My Political Blog (Last post Feb 14) - My MySpace Page

Wouldn't they?

Seriously, why do you always have to ask dull questions like this? Why didn't you ask something like 'what were they doing in Kosovo'? Or were they members of KLA (which is pretty much stated in the text)?

No.

To most Americans, it is common sense that the answer to the above question is no.


Because it is not relevant to the issue. The implication was that they werent American if their names were Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi. I wanted to know why that assumption was made.

__________________
My Political Blog (Last post Feb 14) - My MySpace Page

Technicaly no but it would give America a reason to kick serbia's ass.

yyeeeep...............

__________________
Serbs are the Butchers of Europe! Caused one WWI.
Killed and ethnically cleansed Millions in the Balkans.
Serbs and their leaders are still proud and unapologetic.

Because they are Albanians with US passports, or should I put it like this: recent immigrants to USA.

__________________
Albanians are Islamo-fascists supported by Bin Laden and trained in Al-Qaeda terrorist camps.
Albanians were (chronologically): Turkish horse breeders, Hitler's little pawns, Stalin's servants and today they are Uncle Sam's "allies".
Albanians from Kosovo ethnically cleansed more than 250,000 non-Albanians: Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and others; desecrated more than 150 Christian churches and monasteries and killed thousands in cold blood.

Sorry, they were born and bred in the US!



The killing of Bytyqi brothers or the Bytyqi case refers to the killing of three American-Kosovo Albanians by Serb police shortly after the end of the war in Kosovo, while they were in custody in Petrovo Selo , Serbia. The bodies of the three brothers were discovered in July 2001 in a mass grave containing 70 Albanians in rural Petrovo Selo, Serbia, near a Serbian police facility. The bodies were found with their hands bound and with gunshot wounds to their heads. The indictment against the alleged perpetrators says the brothers were brought to the edge of the pit and shot in the head, causing them to slump into a mass grave atop 70 corpses dumped there earlier. [1]

Agron (23), Mehmet (21) and Ylli (25) were American citizens of Kosovo Albanian origin born in Chicago, Illinois and living in New York. After the war started in Kosovo they decided to go to Kosovo and fight in KLA's “Atlantic Brigade”.

Immediately after the NATO campaign in then FRY ended and the Kumanovo Agreement was signed, they helped their neighbours, the Mitrovic’s, Gypsies from Prizren, Kosovo to return to Kraljevo, where they escaped during the war. Due to a violation of the Law on Movement and Residence of Foreigners Serbian they were arrested at the border between Kosovo and Serbia and sentenced to 15 days in prison. 12 days later after appealing they were set free. Their neighbour Miroslav waited to collect them, but the brothers were instead collected by two men driving a white car with no license plates. They were taken to the MUP Special unit (SAJ) base. Two days later, they were killed with bullets fired to the back of their heads, and buried in a mass grave which already contained the bodies of the murdered Kosovo Albanians. [2]

Serbian authorities have shown little interest to investigate cases where Serbian police and army killed innocent people during the war in Kosovo but since the brothers were American citizens and due to the pressure from US authorities an investigation was launched. United States sees the murder of the Bytyqi brothers as a pre-meditated crime committed against its citizens and FBI started an investigation while the US Embassy in Serbia monitors the case carefully.

The main suspect is Serb, Vlastimir Đordevic, head of MUP’s Public Security and Serbia's assistant minister for internal affairs during the Kosovo war. Đordevic was the commander of the MUP forces in Kosovo in the early 1980’s and one of the most trusted men of Dictator Slobodan Milosevic. In July 1999, Miloševic awarded Đordevic the Medal of the Yugoslav Flag of the First Degree. He was forced into retirement in May 2001, when the cold storage truck containing the bodies of Kosovo Albanians was discovered in the Danube. Đordevic is also one of the most wanted by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Before investigation started, the main suspect Đordevic managed to escape to Moscow, Russia and refused to return.

__________________
Serbs are the Butchers of Europe! Caused one WWI.
Killed and ethnically cleansed Millions in the Balkans.
Serbs and their leaders are still proud and unapologetic.

Are a lot of immigrants born in Chicago, or just those three? heh heh

__________________
My Political Blog (Last post Feb 14) - My MySpace Page