Serbs shrug off Binghamton bar attack, and still rant at U.S. for '99 bombing

BELGRADE - They sit like open sores at the heart of this turbulent eastern European nation.

Long before international fugitive Miladin Kovacevic revived tensions between the U.S. and Serbia, NATO bombs reduced a row of once formidable government buildings here to hulking shells.

The ravaged red-brick and concrete buildings are still standing nearly 10 years after the American-led aerial assault. They represent a wound that, many Serbians say, still runs deep.

"Our people look at America like it's an enemy," said Niko Percovic, 30, a reporter based in the northern city of Novi Sad.

That is one of the reasons, Percovic said, the tale of the monstrous Serb athlete who pummeled Brooklyn college student Bryan Steinhauer and then fled the country received almost no attention here for weeks.

"Nobody wants to say anything about Kovacevic or write anything about him in the newspapers," Percovic added.

But Kovacevic's story isn't going away anytime soon. The U.S. and Serbia are locked in a diplomatic battle over how to get Kovacevic back to upstate New York to face American justice.

International attention focused on Serbia after Kovacevic, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound jock, fled there following a May 4 bar brawl that left fellow Binghamton University student Bryan Steinhauer, 22, in a coma.

The hulking Kovacevic, 20, escaped the U.S. on June 9 with the help of a consulate member, prompting Sen. Chuck Schumer to blast the Serbian government and demand the fugitive be returned. The U.S. ambassador to Serbia this week echoed Schumer's demand.

A Serbian prosecutor said the U.S. has still not filed the formal documentation necessary to spur local authorities to act. Even then, Serbian officials have suggested that their law may forbid them from extraditing Kovacevic.

American officials have conceded their best hope is that Kovacevic is persuaded to surrender voluntarily.

Kovacevic has been spotted strolling around in a T-shirt and gym shorts near his hometown of Kula, a tiny city in the north with a sinister history.

Located 100 miles from Belgrade, Kula is known as the former base of an elite military unit, the Red Berets, which reportedly carried out political assassinations at the behest of the notorious Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic.

Residents there continue to view the U.S. with skepticism. Kovacevic's family friends said he was the victim of a conspiracy.

Around Kula's three-block downtown, residents said they were shocked - and baffled - that one of their own had become a headline-grabbing fugitive.

"Was the [victim] somebody famous?" asked a man at an outdoor fast-food shop in between bites of a pljeskavica, a Serbian hamburger made with pork, lamb and beef. "I heard it was just a fight."

Belgrade, Serbia's bustling capital city, pulsates with life in the summer months.

Outdoor cafes remain packed deep into the night with people sipping iced coffees and wine. Hordes of stunning young women stroll past boutique shops wearing eye-catching outfits. Weekend nights don't end until the sun rises.

"I don't know about it," said a 42-year-old sunglass vendor who declined to give his name. "We have our own problems and they are big ones."

Very big. Beyond the glamour and frenetic nightlife that Belgrade has become known for lies a government in tatters.

A parliamentary election in early May ended with the pro-Western party winning the most votes, but with little hope it could form a united government with its nationalistic opponents.

Two months later, the country is still without a functioning government - a black eye for a nation used to strife.

The police appear to be on edge. On two separate occasions this week, Serbian police ordered a Daily News photographer to erase his photos.

In 1999, Milosevic, intent on driving ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, sent Serb soldiers and police rampaging into the neighboring province.

Then-President Bill Clinton pushed for the NATO attacks, which killed thousands of Serbs and left several government buildings obliterated. Today many political observers believe the bombing campaign was unwarranted.

Dragana Grujin, 30, said she hates Clinton for the devastation he brought to her country nine years ago.

"I don't like it when people get killed for nothing," said Grujin, a hotel worker from Belgrade. "What America did was not necessary. Everybody here feels the same way."

As for Kovacevic, Grujin's views of the case mirrored many of her fellow Serbs. "There was a fight and the Serbian guy was tougher," she said. "What's the big deal?"

"The family definitely did the right thing getting their son out of that corrupt NY town. Given that so many people in NYS are imprisoned wrongly I would have done the same thing. The truth will eventually come out and will prove Kovacevic innocent."

I respectfully disagree, Eleni. Running always makes someone seem guilty even if they are not, and the embassy decision to help Kovacevic escape was totally absurd and counterproductive.

I don't know whether Kovacevic is guilty or not. What I do know is that the NY Daily news has already tried and convicted him in the press, in spite of the fact that TWO OTHER PEOPLE, not just Kovacevic, were arrested for the same crime. Yet all the NY Daily News has focused on is "Serbian thug", "Serbian brute", the size differential between the Steinhauer and Kovacevic, etc, which is wholly irresponsible on their part. They have also incited the kind of political grandstanding by Shummer that is just downright embarrassing, given that we haven't even issued a formal request for Kovacevic's extradition!

This whole situation has been so totally screwed up by incompetence by so many, including the Serbian embassy, the media, and our politicians, that now I have grave doubts that the kid can ever get a fair trial here.

Kovacevic is not the first person to escape to a foreign country to avoid prosecution. But he is perhaps the first case where we have indicted an entire country for the acts of a defendant who escaped and embassy workers who were obvious screw-ups, even though the embassy workers who helped Kovacevic escape were fired immediately by the Serbian government. I can't defend Kovacevic running or the acts of the embassy workers -- I think that they were all dead-wrong to do what they did. But I also think that both the media and US politicians are turning this whole thing into three-ring circus of incompetence and stupidity -- and the more that they do, the more reasons they are giving Kovacevic and Serbia to assume that he has zero chance of getting a fair trial here now if he ever had one to begin with.

When you walk through the farmer's market, you can not freely take figs, melons, plums and peaches although everything is on display, smells provocativelly and sits there just to be taken. What you wrote and what Aussie Sheik Taj El Dene actually said has uncanny resemblance. Here is what he said: Quote: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?" "The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

The fact that young woman does suggestive sexual act on internet (this is fiction, like tv) does not give a right to wimpy student to grab her posterior in real life.

Do you only defend the perp of this particular sexual assaults as being not responsible or you apply it to any sex offender in general?

What is sickening in this case is how American congressmen and Hitlery Clinton abuse the power given to them by the voters.

Serbian constitution does not allow extradition, but Serbian law allows trial for crimes committed abroad. A criminal case should be brought against Kovacevic in Serbian court, with all evidence, to trial him in Serbia.

When you walk through the farmer's market, you can not freely take figs, melons, plums and peaches although everything is on display, smells provocativelly and sits there just to be taken.

When you go to a farmer's market the vendors are sitting with their wares. The fact that it's a market implies that things are for sale not free for the taking.

Quote: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?"

As far as that analogy goes what is your answer? Mine is that it's not the cat's fault or the meat's fault. It is the fault of whoever left the meat there unprotected.

"The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

That part of the quote is a leap of logic into irrationality. It bears no comparison the what I have said.

The fact that young woman does suggestive sexual act on internet (this is fiction, like tv) does not give a right to wimpy student to grab her posterior in real life.

First of all you ignored several other examples I gave. That was necessary for you to make your point seem reasonable. Secondly you ignore the specifics regarding this particular young woman in the article.

Kovacevic’s co-defendants and their pals insisted there was no trouble until Steinhauer grabbed the buttocks of the sexy sophomore, whose Facebook profile is adorned with dozens of provocative pictures - including one of her holding a penis-shaped cake and a condom.

So this young woman has put herself out to the public as open to lewd come ons. She advertised herself to the world with her own lewd come on. Does that excuse the guy? No. Do you have any more common sense than she does and think that every one in the world is decent, sane and moral? It has become very common for young women to act like that and it sends a signal to men who are not decent, sane or moral.

What is sickening in this case is how American congressmen and Hitlery Clinton abuse the power given to them by the voters.

What does that have to do with the story? I don't get the connection to Hillary Clinton or American congressmen. As for Serbian law and constitution I don't give a rat's tuckus about it or what they do or do not do with this guy. He sounds like an animal. Good riddance to him.

There was a fight/Serbian guy was tougher/what’s the big deal?
Case is closed then? Let’s break this down: 1)Fight; 2)Serbian dude tougher; 3) Big deal?...Well, not so fast here...
1)The fight involved a tiny dude vs. a ridiculously huge dude (6-foot-9, 280 pounds)...2)Tougher? It was murder, only little dude doesn’t realize this yet since he’s been in a coma for nearly 2 months, 3)Big deal? Wouldn’t be if big dude hung around so we could practice a quaint, old American custom. We like to call it justice. But big dude - whose story is sorta: Well, I defended my baby’s honor, most especially after this intimidating little dude (who weighed 140 pounds. Serb dude who put him in a coma was 6-foot-9, 280 pounds) attacked us (I was scared to death he’d kill us all, big dude said of little dude!).
Well, Serbian officials helped big dude raise bail and then, since his passport was confiscated - normal in any felony case, especially involving such massive violence that little dude is still comatose more than a month later! - issued him a special emergency passport so he could split the U.S.

Have It Both Ways In Today’s U.S.A.: When You Deem Things Fair, On the Square, We’re There! But When Things Ain’t So Hot: Like Dude, We Got Your Butt, You Just Won Life In The Tank, Hank! But Wait: You Ain’t A Yank! So Just Call The Damn Bank! Sure Your Morning Was Dank But What A Difference A Day Makes: From A Bar Fight To A Night Behind Bars To A Bar-B-Q Down Under: Not Only Did You Knock A Homa, You Also Put Some Tiny Dude In A Coma...Whew! Now Go Out Sell Those Film Rights!!!

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