LaLota Calls for Justice for Executed Long Island Albanian-Americans

By Christopher O'Neill

US Congressman Nick Lalota has introduced House Resolution 41, a bipartisan resolution marking the 26th anniversary of the murder of three Long Island brothers Ylli (25), Agron (23) and Mehmet (21) Bytyqi (pronounced Bootoochee), and to demand that their murderers be brought to justice.

The brothers were all born in the US - and grew-up on Long Island - but were of Albanian descent.  

During the 1999 Kosovo War - where Serbia engaged in mass murder and "ethnic cleansing" to drive over 2 million ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo - the three bothers volunteered for the Kosovo Liberation Army to help with humanitarian efforts.

(Disclosure: During the 199 Kosovo War, the author of this article, along with the Leader’s Publisher, headed a humanitarian aid convoy into Albania with food, medicine and blankets for the refugees who had fled there from Kosovo].

The three brothers arrived in the summer 1999, too late to see any combat, as the war had ended in mid-June.  

The brothers were assigned the duty of escorting a Roma family from Kosovo to Serbia, because the Roma - also known as Gypsies - were being targeted for ethnic oppression by Serbia.

The three brothers were almost immediately arrested by the Serbs for crossing the border. They had KLA dog-tags, US passports, as well as New York driving licenses on their persons.

They were taken to a Serbian prison for two weeks, and were then taken in an unmarked car by men in plain clothes to a Serbian special police base: They were never seen alive again.

Two years later their bodies were found buried in a "mass grave" pit - along with about 70 other bodies - not far from the police camp. 

Their bodies showed signs of torture, their hands were bound behind their backs, and they had been shot at close range in the back of the head. Those responsible have never been held to account.

The prime suspect in the murders - according to younger brother Fatos Bytyqi, who was 19 at the time and is now a 37 year-old manager of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Hampton Bays - is retired Serbian general Goran Radosavljevic. 

Radosavljevic was commander of the Serbian police base at the time and is now a member of the executive board of the Serbian Progressive Party - the party of Serbia's President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

Fatos takes off from work every year and visits Serbia to lobby for justice for his brothers. He regularly meets with high Serbian officials during his visits, including with the prime minister, but believes the Serbs are stonewalling and protecting the murderer General.

Congressman Lalota’s resolution states that progress in solving this ca