Death of the Bytyqi brothers

Last updated

The Bytyqi brothers were American-Kosovo Albanian members of the Kosovo Liberation Army who were killed by Serbian Police shortly after the end of the Kosovo War, while they were in custody in Petrovo Selo, Kladovo, Serbia. The bodies of the three brothers were discovered in July 2001 in a mass grave containing 70 Albanians, near Special Anti–Terrorist Unit (SAJ) training 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]

Contents

Agron (23), Mehmet (21) and Ylli (25) were American citizens of Kosovo Albanian origin born near Chicago, Illinois and living in New York City. [2] The Bytyqi family comes from the village of Semetisht in the town of Suhareka. After the rebellion started in Kosovo they decided to go to Kosovo and fight in KLA's "Atlantic Brigade".

In July 1999, following the conclusion of NATO's military response to the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's ethnic cleansing of Albanians and the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, they smuggled two families  – а Serbian family from Suharekë (Kosovo) – to return to Kraljevo, from where they escaped during the war. Due to a violation of the "Law on Movement and Residence of Foreigners" of Republic of Serbia, they were arrested along the transit road between Kosovo and Serbia. They were sentenced to 15 days in prison. Twelve days later after appealing, they were released. Their Serbian neighbor 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 Special Anti–Terrorist Unit training 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 killed Kosovo Albanians. [3]

As of July 2019, there are no pending charges in the case and no high-ranking official has been investigated for their involvement. [4] However, several United States Congress members asked the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić to extradite former police general Goran Radosavljević to the United States, which he refused, reportedly saying that "there is no evidence for his arrest". [4]

The investigation

The Serbian authorities showed little interest to investigate cases where Serbian police has acted during the war in Kosovo,[ citation needed ] but since the brothers were American citizens and due to the pressure from US authorities, an investigation was launched. The United States saw the murder of the Bytyqi brothers as a premeditated crime committed against its citizens; the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started an investigation while the US Embassy in Belgrade monitored the case carefully.

The main suspect was Vlastimir Đorđević, Chief of the Public Security Department of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia (MUP) and assistant minister for internal affairs during the Kosovo war. Đorđević was the commander of the MUP forces in Kosovo in the early 1980s, and one of the most trusted men of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević.[ citation needed ] In July 1999, Miloševic awarded Đorđević the "Medal of the Yugoslav Flag" of the First Degree. He was forced into retirement in May 2001, when the refrigerator truck containing the bodies of Kosovo Albanians was discovered in the Danube near Kladovo. Before the investigation started, Đorđević relocated to Moscow, but was in 2007 arrested in Budva, Montenegro. In 2011, he was found guilty of war crimes against Kosovo Albanian civilians during the Kosovo War before the ICTY. The Minister of Internal Affairs during the Kosovo War Vlajko Stojiljković, who allegedly originated the orders, committed suicide in 2002. [5]

The killing of Bytyqi brothers is still being investigated by Serbia's War Crimes Court. Two low-ranking police figures who may have marginally abetted the crimes, Miloš Stojanović and Sreten Popović, were acquitted of all charges of aiding war crimes in March 2013 because of their marginal involvement in the Bytyqi murders. [6]

In February 2007, the police issued the warrant for Goran "Guri" Radosavljević, after he failed to show up at a trial of Miloš Stojanović and Sreten Popović. Radosavljević was in charge of SAJ's training facility where the brothers were detained, executed, and dumped into a mass grave. Radosavljević testified in the trial, claiming that he was away on vacation at the time of the Bytyqi brothers' detainment and execution. [5]

Four more officers were detained in late February 2007, as the investigation about who exactly ordered and carried out the executions continued, [1] [3] [7] among whom were Milenko Arsenijević (Commander of SAJ at the time) and three other police officers. [8] None were ever charged.

In March 2007, the US Embassy in Belgrade said the U.S. Department of Justice will continue to conduct its own investigation pursuant to U.S. law. [9]

Trial of Sreten Popović and Miloš Stojanović

In 2012 trial in Serbia, two men were found not guilty in aiding in the death of the brothers, in part because of their marginal involvement in the crimes. [10] In 2013, Prosecutor's appeal was denied verdict the acquittals were upheld. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosovo War</span> 1998–1999 armed conflict in Kosovo

The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosovo Liberation Army</span> Ethnic-Albanian nationalist paramilitary organization (1992–1999)

The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania, which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation.

The Račak massacre or Račak operation was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak in central Kosovo in January 1999. The massacre was perpetrated by Serbian security forces in response to Albanian separatist activity in the region. The Serbian government refused to let a war crimes prosecutor visit the site, and maintained that the casualties were all members of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) killed in combat with state security forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gračanica Monastery</span> Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery in Kosovo

The Gračanica Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery located in Kosovo. It was built by the Serbian king Stefan Milutin in 1321. The monastery was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1990, and on 13 July 2006 it was placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List under the name of Medieval Monuments in Kosovo as an extension of the Visoki Dečani site, which was overall placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vlastimir Đorđević</span> Serbian general (born 1948)

Vlastimir Đorđević is a Serbian former police colonel general. For his role in the Kosovo War, he was found guilty of war crimes against Kosovo Albanians before the ICTY.

The Podujevo massacre is the name generally used to refer to the killing of 14 Kosovo Albanian civilians, mostly women and children, committed in March 1999 by the Scorpions, a Serbian paramilitary organisation in conjunction with the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit of Serbia, during the Kosovo War. One of the survivors of this massacre, Saranda Bogujevci, 13 years old when it occurred, received mass media attention after she successfully managed to bring to justice her case with the help of several organizations from Serbia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suva Reka massacre</span>

The Suva Reka massacre refers to the mass murder of Kosovo Albanian civilians committed by Serbian police officers on 26 March 1999 in Suva Reka, Kosovo, during the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia.

The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, which proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo to be a state independent from Serbia, was adopted at a meeting held on 17 February 2008 by 109 out of the 120 members of the Assembly of Kosovo, including the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, and by the President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu. It was the second declaration of independence by Kosovo's Albanian-majority political institutions; the first was proclaimed on 7 September 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drenica massacres</span> Mass killings in Kosovo

The Drenica massacres were a series of killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians committed by Serbian special police forces[a] in the Drenica region of central Kosovo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War crimes in the Kosovo War</span> War crimes committed during the Kosovo War

Numerous war crimes were committed by all sides during the Kosovo War, which lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. According to Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of abuses were attributable to the government of Slobodan Milošević, mainly perpetrated by the Serbian police, the Yugoslav army, and Serb paramilitary units. During the war, regime forces killed between 7,000–9,000 Kosovar Albanians, engaged in countless acts of rape, destroyed entire villages, and displaced nearly one million people. The Kosovo Liberation Army has also been implicated in atrocities, such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians. Moreover, the NATO bombing campaign has been harshly criticized by human rights organizations and the Serbian government for causing roughly 500 civilian casualties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars</span>

Serbia, as a constituent subject of the SFR Yugoslavia and later the FR Yugoslavia, was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vushtrri massacre</span> Killing of kosovars

The Vushtrri massacre was the mass killing of Kosovo Albanian refugees near Vushtrri, during the Kosovo War on 2–3 May 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goran Radosavljević</span>

Goran Radosavljević "Guri" is a Serbian former police colonel general and the Commander of the Gendarmery of Serbia from 2001 to 2004. During the Kosovo War he was in the Special Police Units (Serbia) and the leader of a group of counter-terrorist teams that combated the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perućac lake</span> Reservoir in between Višegrad & Bajina Bašta

Lake Perućac is an artificial lake on the Drina River, on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It was created in 1966 and occupies a natural bend of the river, which encircles the Tara mountain, between towns of Višegrad in Bosnia and Bajina Bašta in Serbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sreten Lukić</span> Serbian general (born 1955)

Sreten Lukić is a retired Serbian colonel general. He served as the head of the Serbian Police in Kosovo during the 1998–99 Kosovo War and subsequently as the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia from 2001 to 2004.

The Meja massacre was the mass execution of at least 377 Kosovo Albanian civilians during the Kosovo War, which took place on 27 April 1999. Of the victims, 36 were under 18 years old. It was committed by Serbian police and Yugoslav Army forces in the Reka Operation which began after the killing of six Serbian policemen by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The executions occurred in the village of Meja near the town of Gjakova. The victims were pulled from refugee convoys at a checkpoint in Meja and their families were ordered to proceed to Albania. Men and boys were separated and then executed by the road. It is one of the largest massacres in the Kosovo War. Many of the bodies of the victims were found in the Batajnica mass graves. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has convicted several Serbian army and police officers for their involvement.

The Batajnica mass graves are mass graves that were found in 2001 near Batajnica, a suburb of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The graves contained the bodies of 744 Kosovar Albanians civilians that were killed during the Kosovo War. The mass graves were found on the training grounds of the Yugoslav Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ). Dead bodies were brought to the site by trucks from Kosovo; most were incinerated before burial. After the war, SAJ restricted investigators' access to the firing range, and continued live-firing exercises whilst forensic teams tried to investigate the massacre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artemije Radosavljević</span> Serbian Orthodox bishop (1935–2020)

Artemije Radosavljević was a Serbian Orthodox bishop who served as the head of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren from 1991 until his removal in 2010.

The Rudnica mass grave is a site in Rudnica, southern Serbia where Kosovo Albanian victims of Serbian operations were transferred from several areas in Kosovo and buried in the site during the Kosovo War. The grave contains remains of 250 individuals.

The Ugljare mass grave is a burial site in the village of Ugljare in the Kosovo municipality of Gjilan. Those buried include Kosovo Serbs and possibly Kosovo Albanians sometime around July 1999. At the time, it was the only case which involved in the Kosovo war crimes tribunal the investigation of a crime against civilians which was possibly committed by Albanians against Serbs. No perpetrators have been found. Kosovo leaders during the war, including former Prime Minister and the "George Washington of Kosovo", Hashim Thaci, are currently on trial for crimes against humanity, murder, forced deportation, kidnapping, and persecution of Serbs and other minorities in a specially commissioned court, The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, established to prosecute Albanian leaders for crimes during and after the Kosovo War.

References

  1. 1 2 Defendants in murder trial of 3 Albanian Americans temporarily released – International Herald Tribune
  2. ↑ bytyqibrothers.org. "The Bytyqi Brothers" . Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  3. 1 2 B92 – The Bytyqi Case
  4. 1 2 Čongradin, S. (9 July 2019). "Navršava se 20 godina od ubistva trojice braće Bitići". danas.rs (in Serbian). Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  5. 1 2 bytyqibrothers.org (13 March 2014). "Timeline" . Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  6. ↑ bytyqibrothers.org. "Popovic & Stojanovic Appellate Court Decision" (PDF). Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  7. ↑ Gruesome details emerge in Serbian mass grave cover up of Kosovo war crimes – International Herald Tribune
  8. ↑ "New Kosova Report – Home". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2007-04-13.
  9. ↑ "U.S. Embassy Welcomes Progress in Bytyqi Case, March 1, 2007". Archived from the original on February 26, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2007.
  10. ↑ "U.S. Urges Serbia to arrest murderers of Bytyqi brothers".
  11. ↑ "Serb Policemen Acquitted in American KLA Fighters Case". 29 March 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.