Secret of Petrovo Selo

by Jovan Dulovic

William Montgomery, US Ambassador to Belgrade, recently informed the Serbian Minister of Police, Dusan Mihajlovic, that the American Administration is keenly interested in the case of mass shooting and discovery of a mass grave in Petrovo Selo where American citizens, the brothers Agron, Mehment and Jul Bitici are buried. The American Administration expects that the Serbian Government will carry out a detailed investigation into the deaths of these Americans, which merely increased Minister Mihajlovic's already considerable problems. In other words, the US Government expects that the new, democratic government in Serbia will undertake an investigation in which it will establish who issued the order for the committing of this crime.

Minister Mihajlovic has the following to say regarding this: "Three male bodies were discovered near the top of a berial sight and were in better condition that the other bodies. Their hands were tied and their eyes covered, with bullet wounds in the head area. In the pockets of one of them was found a court decision reached by the community court of Kursumlija, dated June 27, 1999, which sentences the Bitici brothers to 15 days in prison for having entered the FRY illegally. Our investigation of court documents in Prokuplje and evidence of witnesses indicates that the Bitici brothers entered the FRY illegally through Albania and that they were discovered on the territory of Kursumlija on June 26. The next day they were sentenced and on July 8 the Head Prison Warden at the Regional Prison in Prokuplje released them. At that time a police inspector from the foreign citizens' department went to serve them an order preventing them from staying in the FRY. He did not see them at the prison because they already left. That is all we know for now."

None of the officials mentioned the corpses of the Bitici brothers, probably hoping that they will be identified with other Albanian victims in Kosovo. However, it seems that the participation of the Hague team of investigators during the exhumation and the identification of the bodies of the Bitici brothers was forgotten, along with the fact that they submitted their report to the Hague Tribunal.

It is hard to take seriously the claim made by Minister Mihajlovic regarding the fact that "this is all we know for now." The mass grave in Petrovo Selo is located directly next to the base of the MUP Special Antiterrorist Unit (SAJ) where members of that unit were staying at that time. There are no answers to many questions "for now". For instance, it is impossible that the police is unable or is unwilling to establish who took the Bitici borthers to Petrovo Selo after their 15 day sentence expired at the prison in Prokuplje and liquidated them with shots to the head. "Former Police Chief for the District of Toplice, Milisav Vucicevic, announced that members of the MUP will come to take the Bitici brothers from prison from where they were released on July 8, 1999," is a statement made by former Director of the Prokuplje Prison, Aleksandar Djordjevic. Vucicevic certainly had to know who the two members of the MUP were and at whose orders they came to take over the Bitici brothers from the prison. Hope still remains that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia will finally release the names of the two "unidentified members of the MUP" who took part in this liquidation and concealment of the crimes committed in Kosovo.

It is expected that the autopsy reports of the 75 corpses discovered in Petrovo Selo will be completed by September, while establishment of their identities will take much longer. The remains of the victims are buried near the mass grave and are marked with numbers with which their clothes are also marked. Also discovered are two KLA uniforms. It was unusual that on July 4, when our photo reporter took these images at the mass grave near Petrovo Selo, there was no security nor anyone else present, even though the victims clothes were spread on a clothes line, which is a very important detail on the basis of which the families of the victims could recognize their missing.