Bytyqi case: Defendants released from custody

Bytyqi case: Defendants released from custody

“The Trial Chamber’s decision won’t jeopardize the case since it stipulates a protective measure, meaning it has set certain boundaries and rules. The defendants are obliged to report to police on a regular basis, and I believe the case is sound and unlikely to suffer,” Vekarić added.

Former special police members Sreten Popović and Miloš Stojanović have been accused of taking part in a war crime against three prisoners, U.S. citizens, who entered what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) from Albania, without being registered with state institutions, and subsequently fought with the KLA’s ”Atlantic Brigade”.

According to the indictment, the first accused, Sreten Popović, ordered Stojanović to arrest the Bytyqi brothers on July 8, 1999 immediately following their release from the Prokuplje prison where they served a sentence for having illegally entered the FRY from Albania.

Stojanović allegedly had orders to take them to Police training center in Petrovo Selo and hand them over to the still unidentified persons who shot the Bytyqi brothers in the back of their heads.

Their bodies were discovered in 2001 on top of a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, which already contained the bodies of the murdered Kosovo Albanians.