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"Today we mark a gloomy anniversary. Twenty years ago, Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyci were taken from a police station and taken to the special police unit. Two years later, the troops of these three American citizens were found at Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia, on a controlled basis by units under Goran Radosavljevic's command. They were with tied hands and were shot in the head," is written in the embassy's communiqué.
Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyci, were members of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, namely the Atlantic battalion, made up of Albanians living in the United States, and who joined the war in Kosovo.
In July 1999, they were arrested in unfamiliar circumstances by Serbian forces near the border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia in Merdare.
A court in Serbia's Prokuplje town had sentenced them up to 15 days in prison for illegally crossing the border of former Yugoslavia.
Though 20 years have passed. "The murders have not yet been properly and thoroughly investigated. Their death cannot and will not be forgotten," said a statement saying that establishing justice for Bytyci brothers remains a priority in our bilateral relations with Serbia. The United States calls on Serbian authorities, who have pledged to help this case for many years, to resolve it," the statement said.
Since 2006, two litigation cases have been conducted concerning the case of Bytyci brothers against two former Serb police officers who were subsequently released.
In December 2018 the US State Department forbade the entry into the United States of America to the former Serbian police general for which, as stated in the announcement, there is credible evidence that he was involved in the murder of Bytyci brothers, three Albanian-Americans, in 1999.
Goran Radosavlevic, known as Guri, is one of the close associates of the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's party.
Senior US officials have consistently pressured Belgrade to lighten this case while a group of US lawmakers had demanded that progress on this issue to be a key factor in establishing further relations between the United States and Serbia.