Djuro Slavuj

International missions in Kosovo did not conduct proper investigations to establish who abducted or killed journalists and media workers in Kosovo during and after the war, said an investigation launched on Tuesday by the Serbian Journalists' Association, UNS.

It was August 21, 1998 when a team from Radio Pristina was deployed to Zociste in western Kosovo on an assignment.

In the car was radio journalist Djuro Slavuj and driver Ranko Perenic.

These crimes happened between 1998 and 200, and no one has been brought to justice, the Council of Europe (CoE) has stated on its website.

Media blackout

Prosecutor Drita Hajdari believes "there was the media blackout about these war crimes for nearly twenty years":

OSCE ambassador to Kosovo Jan Braathu said on Tuesday at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to two Serbian reporters who were kidnapped in 1999 and never found that the European organisation will support increased efforts to find the perpetrators of crimes against journalists in the country.

The plaque - that has been destroyed six times in the past by unknown perpetrators - is located near the Velika Hoca-Zociste road where Radio Pristina journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic went missing on August 21, 1998.

The Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo and Metohija said in a statement that this act testifies to the omnipresent tradition in Kosovo of covering up crimes.

A New York Times reporter saw a car that transported journalists Ranko Perenic and Djuro Slavuj, kidnapped in Kosovo and Metohija in 1998.

This is according to the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS), that is quoting Milivoje Mihajlovic, a former Radio Pristina editor and head of the Media Center in this town, that was "a key source of information for all media in 1998 and 1999 in Kosovo."

BELGRADE - Deputy Chief Prosecutor at Kosovo's Special Prosecution Office Jonathan Ratel has pledged that EULEX will reopen all cases of kidnapped and murdered journalists in Kosovo-Metohija, the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS) has said in a release.