The ghosts of the massacre in "Panda" over Aleksandar Vučić

In Serbia, there are two types of stories about war crimes: those that are never resolved and those that are dangerous to repeat out loud.

On the cover of the new issue (on newsstands this Thursday), “Vreme” features a story by Jovana Gligorijevic about two crimes that fall into both of these categories – the massacre of Serbian youth in "Panda" cafe in Peja (1998) and the Bytyqi brothers (1999).

These topics were inadvertently brought back into focus by a regime propaganda film against Veran Matić, the former head of the Commission for the Investigation of the Murders of Journalists. Matić once had and then lost the blessing of current Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to investigate the cases.

"Some of the evidence that emerged among the information we received pointed to the possible use of the same weapon in the case of the Bytyqi brothers or in the case of the Panda murder, and then the opportunity opened up to investigate those cases as well," Matić recalls.

Whose head is in a bag?

However, there were obstacles, information leaked to the public. However, the commission drafted a report in 2013 for Aleksandar Vučić, in which it proposed the formation of commissions on the cases of the Bytyçi brothers and the Panda massacre.

Then, in 2013, Vučić came out with the information that there was no evidence that the KLA was guilty of the Panda massacre, "on the contrary."

But to this day, he hasn't lifted a finger to solve the crime – and he's never met the families of the murdered young men.

To date, everything indicates that both crimes were the work of Serbian services and that they could have been easily investigated – if there had been the will.

In the end, writes Jovana Gligorijevic, it turns out that the only ones with their heads in a bag are those who suggest a way for the truth to come to light.

The Geopost