Serbian President Urged to Help Reveal War Grave Sites

In their letter to Aleksandar Vucic on Monday, the family of the Albanian-American Bytyqi brothers said that they are confident that Vlastimir Djordjevic has vital information that can help locate mass graves and urged the Serbian president and government to press him to disclose the information.

"If he does not cooperate in both locating additional mass graves and in shedding light on the Bytyqi case, we urge you to openly oppose Vlastimir Djordjevic's early release from prison," the family said in the letter to Vucic.

Djordjevic, a former high-ranking Serbian interior ministry official who was jailed for 18 years by the Hague Tribunal for war crimes in Kosovo, could be due for early release on June 17 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

The family of the Ylli, Agron, and Mehmet Bytyqi - US citizens of Albanian origin who were killed in Serbia in 1999 - said on May 20 that they were launching a campaign against the potential early release of Djordjevic, who they suspect was implicated in their relatives' deaths.

The Bytyqi family said on Monday that nearly 2,000 signatures against Djorjdevic's early release have been gathered so far. On Friday, 34 NGOs from Serbia and Kosovo signed a letter to the president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague supporting the campaign's goals, the family also said.

The Bytyqi family also sent a letter on Monday to Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, urging him to oppose Djordjevic's early release from prison.

The letter to both presidents recalls that there are still 1,654 missing persons from the war, of whom 1,092 are Albanians and 562 are Serbs and Roma. "There is little doubt that additional mass graves exist," it added.

The three Bytyqi brothers went to...