3 Americans found in grave in Serbia


Associated Press
July 14, 2001


NIS, Yugoslavia - Three bodies found bound with wire and blindfolded in a mass grave in Serbia bore documents indicating they are U.S. citizens of ethnic Albanian origin, an official said Friday.


An examination will be required to verify their identity, the official, a member of a forensics team investigating the grave in Petrovo Selo, said on condition of anonymity.

The mass grave was discovered recently about 120 miles east of the capital, Belgrade, and has been linked to Slobodan Milosevic's campaign to cover up Kosovo atrocities by burying victims far from the province.

The former Yugoslav president was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal involving atrocities carried out against non-Serbs in Kosovo and was extradited to the Netherlands-based court June 28.

Papers found on the men identify them as Agron, Mehmet and Yli Bytyqi, brothers born in Chicago in 1978, 1976 and 1974, respectively.

The brothers lived in New York City and their mother and sister lived in Prizren in western Kosovo, the source said.

The southern Yugoslav province has been run by NATO since June 1999 after a 78-day air campaign to force Milosevic's regime to halt its crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

The bodies of the three men were lying atop a heap containing remains of 13 other ethnic Albanians in a ditch on the fringes of a special police compound in Petrovo Selo, the source said. An adjacent grave contained 59 more bodies, bringing the total to 75.

The position of the three, the only ones who were blindfolded, their hands tied with wire, points to the likelihood that they were killed nearby, the source said. The men were dressed in civilian clothes and were shot at close range.