SERB DOCTOR SAYS KOSOVO POLICE FAILED TO ACT PROMPTLY AFTER ATTACK ON COUPLE
BBC Monitoring International Reports - March 30, 2005

Text of report by Belgrade-based private BKTV on 30 March

(Presenter) UNMIK (UN Interim Administration Mission) chief Soeren Jessen-Petersen claims that it is untrue that Albanians beat up the Vucic (elderly Serb) couple in Crkolez village (on 29 March). During his visit to Serbs housed in a collective centre near Bujanovac, Petersen had said that the crime was not ethnically motivated, adding that it was nearer home, without explaining what this meant. Nevenka Vucic's condition is stable, but Nedeljko Vucic is still in a critical condition. The director of the Kosovska Mitrovica Clinical Centre, Milan Ivanovic, told BKTV that Soeren Jessen-Petersen was giving statements based on reports by the Albanian media.

(Ivanovic, voice over phone) Petersen's statement - that ethnic Albanians were not the perpetrators of the crime against the Vucic couple - has, in fact, merely been taken from Albanian media reports. This is a statement concocted by the Albanians who, in well-known fashion, are trying to blame other people for their crimes, that is, to blame the other side, just as they had blamed the Serbs for the drowning of the three children in the Ibar River (on 16 March 2004). This time, too, this is about a fabrication and about making excuses.

They (the Vucics) were admitted to hospital and, judging by the injuries they suffered (changes thought) - the seriousness of these injuries clearly showed that brutal, fierce force was used against them.

Nevenka Vucic said herself that she had seen two unknown persons - in such a small village everyone knows each other - and that she believed that they were ethnic Albanians. There was no investigation at the scene for four hours, at least four hours after the crime against the Serbs in Crkolez village in Istok municipality. The KPS, the Kosovo Police Service, was supposed to carry out the investigation; these are Albanians from Istok police station.
 

Source: BKTV, Belgrade, in Serbian 1355 gmt 30 Mar 05

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