Posted on 07/06/2008 1:08:11 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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.
A solution could take months - if one comes at all.
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 month after Kovacevic fled, he remains a free man.
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.
One question looms large - why would he?
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.
"The most he is guilty of is that he is big," one friend said.
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.
Questions about the Kovacevic case were often met here with looks of confusion.
"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.
In Serbia, feelings are still raw.
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?"
Tailgunner, there is nothing in the article that you link to that says a "formal" request has been made!
When US makes request, he will be tried in Serbia.
if he is guilty, he will get in jail, if not- not
No, but in the US this action would be felony sexual assault. Civilized people call the police, they do not commit violent assault, which is a more serious felony. From your comments in this thread 'civilized people' does not include anyone in the Balkans
Anyway, in the mess senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) reqested that Serbi amust extradicte Kovacevic.
Senator Charles Schumer is known to be Albanian lobbyst:
http://www.aacl.com/AACL_JUN2005/DioGuardi-politics_and_religion.htm
This girl is hardly alone. Young women these days advertise themselves as free meat so at some point they should expect to be treated like free meat.
I'd be pretty angry as well if a foreign president decided to bomb my country to get a sex scandal out of the news.
Sorry, the Albanians are the ones that attacked the Croats in Kosovo! (along with their attacks of the Gorani, Roma, Serbs and Turks!)
TGJ, never one to let THE FACTS get in the way of a good "hate-the-Serbs" fest.
Gropped girl's mother sorry....
The mother of a sexy coed at the center of a violent bar brawl said her daughter was "violated" by the bespectacled honors student but insisted he never should have been beaten for the offense.
"My baby didn't deserve what she got," Melissa Cartagena, 40, said Sunday. "No one has a right to grope my daughter."
Bryan Steinhauer, 22, is still in a semicoma eight weeks after the stomping that cracked his skull.
And suspect Miladin Kovacevic remained on the lam in his Serbian homeland - thanks to the embassy official who bailed him out of jail and helped him flee the country.
Cartagena, whose daughter's name is also Melissa, said the fellow Binghamton University student was "devastated
"She has worked hard to build up her reputation," Cartagena said. "She's an honor student with a steady job."
The mom said Steinhauer "was really drunk," but said he should never have been pummeled.
"My prayers are with him," she said. "I hope he makes it out of the coma."
Her daughter released a statement in which she said Steinhauer groped her and head-butted her boyfriend, Senal Softic, 21, when they clashed at an offcampus bar May 4.
"This big guy [Kovacevic] saw what happened and just began punching him over and over," she wrote in the statement. "It all happened so quick."
I dont know, but Hillary should have done to Bill over Monica what Kovacevic did to Steinhauer over Melissa, and we would avoide one war...
Why Heck, the Austro Hungarians had to get the Kaiser involved just to get them to even offer to TALK about the assasin Princip’s serb army employers. Belgrade is going to give this punk up? He is a serb hero!
Franz Ferdinand was shot by Austrian citizen.
Austria wanted to go to war against serbia long time before that.
But this does describe the situation that exists currently in Kosovo, hence the destruction of 200+ Christian churches, monasteries, and cemeteries, along with the KLA also targeting non-Muslim Albanians.
This would otherwise be nothing more than a pedestrian “guys, a girl and a bar” story, had Kovacevic not gotten help from the embassy to make a run for it. Even though the embassy worker was fired by Serbia almost immediately, it has now been turned into an international incident with politicians on both sides of the Atlantic grandstanding. And the NY Daily News has shown itself to be a racist rag following this story —wit headlines like “Serb” Thug” Serb Brute” — you’d think that there weren’t three of them accused of the same fight. Pretty juvenile at best, if you ask me.
Lincoln was shot by an American citizen, but he wasn’t on the payroll of Gen Lee or Virginia.
Austria Hungary resisted all provocations until Germany reacted forcibly to the 9/11 style attack upon the heart of European governance, as the black hand had calculated
Austria wanted to go to war so badly they offered Serbia ridiculously prohibitive terms & after Serbia accepted declared war on them anyway.
When the Croat’s political leader was knifed to death by the serb majority leaders on the floor of the “Yugoslav/serb/Triannon” duma in the 20’s a precident was set.
What can one say other than that you are incorrect and know better. Had the serbs accepted the draconian terms for having assasinated the heir to the A/H government the war would not have occured.
What precedents were set by US Senators and representatives challenging each other to duels during the first 100 years of our Republic?
Let’s “Take it outside” actually has a civilized ring to it.
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