Testimony of Lazar, whose brother (4) was killed by KLA terrorist. "He tore off a part of my heart"

Almost 22 years ago, on May 28, 2000, in the Serb village of Cernice near Gjilane, a Serb boy, Milos Petrovic, was shot and killed. He was only 4 years old. He was killed by Albanian terrorists, led by Afrim Zeqiri, a member of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Neither Zeqiri nor his helpers were ever prosecuted. In addition to Milos, his uncle Vojin Vasic, and Tihomir Trifunovic were also killed.

EULEX at the time dropped the investigation because "there was no evidence." According to information from the day when the three Serbs were killed, a burst of fire was opened against them while they were sitting in front of a local store.

Milos' older brother, Lazar Petrovic, saw with his own eyes his brother's murder and described for Telegraf.rs the tragedy that he personally as well as members of his family went through.

"I will remember this insidious and cowardly act for the rest of my life. There was a silence all day, a peaceful time, we had no idea that something like that would happen, that some terrible event would happen, which would rob us of our lives, shorten our lives, that nothing would be the same again, that it would tear off a part of my heart and take away my right to have a brother," Lazar recalled and added:

"We were together all day, visiting our uncle in in the village of Koretiste. When we returned, our uncle invited us to get us ice cream, they left two minutes before me. As soon as I came out of the gate and reached the bridge ten meters from the store, a burst of fire started, I don't know how I managed to run next to some wall, I grabbed my head like any child would when they witness a horrible scene. My brother was dead, I was ten meters away from him."

Their uncle Vojin Vasic was also killed during the tragedy when bullets were sprayed on the group of Serbs.

Lazar is disappointed and inconsolable because the perpetrators have never been found, and because no one has yet been held responsible for the murder of his little brother.

"The perpetrators have not been found yet, it's the same like for all other crimes in Kosovo and Metohija," Lazar Petrovic explained.

When asked if someone threatened him after the murder of his brother, Lazar said no, but that the Serbs in his village still feel insecure.

"Nobody threatened me, but after that murder, there were more incidents and criminal acts, which are still going on. People in the village still live in a state of alert, and when a silence descends on the village, people avoid moving and going out, because that silence preceded many attacks and took many innocent lives," said Lazar.

Lazar remembers his younger brother with sadness and claims that he was a cheerful and friendly boy, whom everyone loved and that no one could imagine what would happen to him.

"My brother was cheerful, sociable. There is no person in the village who wouldn't take him to the store and buy him ice cream. A calm soul, a soul that would not stand in anyone's way, whatever he had some candy, he's share it with everyone," Lazar tells us.

Lazar now works at the Branko Radicevic Elementary School in Cernica as a teacher of Russian language and literature. He graduated from the faculty in Kosovska Mitrovica.

No one was punished for the murder

From 1999 to 2003, seven Serbs were killed in the village of Cernice. A dozen more Serbs were wounded, and the material damage done to Serb property was enormous.

The Orthodox church of St. Ilija was not spared either. All of this was happening in front of KFOR soldiers.

UN's civilian mission in Kosovo and KFOR said at the time that international police immediately arrested an Albanian man suspected of killinguzh three Kosovo Serbs. UNMIK and KFOR spokesmen did not provide any other details, except that the international police would not stop the investigation until they discover the perpetrators.

Bernard Kouchner, the former head of UNMIK, said at the time he felt "revolted" by the news of the killings in Cernica and called them cold-blooded murders.

Afrim Zeqiri, aka "Black Bomber," whom the Serbs identified as the perpetrator of the attack, allegedly voluntarily surrendered to KFOR. He had previously been arrested several times for staging provocations or attacks on the Serb population in Cernica. Zeqiri was transferred to the prison at US military base Bondsteel, not far from Urosevac.

Only two years later, in June 2002, the International Chamber of the Gjilane District Court presided by an ethnic Albanian judge acquitted him, although death penalty had previously been sought for him.

(Telegraf.rs)