Serbian journalist who was kidnapped by U CK: Saved by Father, Pristina football player

In a long interview for the vice.com portal, Radoseviqi shows how he is alive and how he has escaped the ceasefire and football, respectively, the fame his father, former Pristina footballer, enjoyed in Kosovo.

I was working as war reporter during the 1998 and 1999 conflict for Radio B92. During that year I regularly went to Pristina, along with few local and many foreign rapporteurs. We some of the92-shires had the duty and privilege of informing the Serbian public opinion, which lived in the informative darkness of the Milosevic regime of what really happens in Kosovo”, recalls then Radosevqi.

Him and his colleague from Tanjug Kiqo Dobricq, on 18 October 1998, near the Slatina airport, had been arrested by Albanian rebels who were waging fierce fighting with Serb forces that summer and autumn throughout Kosovo.

Since a ceasefire had entered into force that day, when the Serbian regime allowed the OSCE mission to deploy to Kosovo, the two Serbian journalists had decided that with a “Ygo Florida” to visit the airport, where the OSCE delegation was expected to arrive, while the withdrawal of Serbian forces had already begun.

“Rugs to the village of Sedvere we met in a larger group of Unformed Albanians. About 15 people stood by the road, stopped us, legitimateized us. They asked us in the Serbian language and had good manners. They took us out of the car, took us off the road, and bound our hands and eyes. Soon we were driven into a car and taken to Sedlère, which is about 15 kilometers from the Pristina centre of”, claims Radosevqi.

Of the 41 days they've been arrested, 20 days have spent in that village the first 10 days in separate rooms in the abandoned health house building, after what they've joined in a room.

Asked whether he was afraid, Serbian journalist says it is natural that in such a situation the man is afraid. However, it says, it has been quite calm, because it has realised there is a ceasefire, that there is a political agreement, that in Kosovo it has reached O The SBE and nobody gets any profit if two journalists get hurt.

It turned out that this was what it really was. If there was another moment of kidnapping, question is how all of this would end”, Nebojsa says.

However, he adds, there has been another moment, along with the ceasefire, that has helped them even more.

The thing that probably saved my head most is my last name, my father Dragan Radosevic, respectively. Since the first day that the local Albanian commander received my ID in that village, the first thing he asked me was what do you have, Dragan Radosevich? I answered that he's my father, and he gave me back Radoshevich for nothing to worry about. My father was a legendary footballer, captain of Pristina, and later a coach of that club. He was highly respected and beloved both by Serbs and by Albanians”, says Nebojsa Radosevicq.

He shows that this fact has also helped them to have largely correct treatment during the arrest, especially in the first village, where they have spent three weeks taking two-three meals a day, cigarettes, water. It has happened that someone even offended, but physical violence over two journalists has not been exercised.

On the third day, they have been told that they are accused of spying and that they will have to appear before their court. The problem has been that they have entered KLA territory without permission from its political representative in Pristina, Adem Demac and without a sign P RIS in the Machine.

“I think, it is not very real that the state agency journalists ask for permission to move from the KLA... but whether”, he says.

The next day, Nebojsa recalls, there was an event he thought was his end.

On the fourth day, he joined a team of 4-5, with a KLA commander. I wouldn't be able to get to know them today, because at that moment my glasses were gone. The guy in charge got into the room, very aggressively, screaming, putting the Tompson tube in my mouth, then leaning it in my eyes, back into my mouth... forced me to shout the KLA showing me the coat in uniform.

It's a little bit to say that it was all unpleasant. Everything went through my head, and at some point I thought, "Come on, shoot, man, better than kill me.

Then he cooled down, laughed, asked me who I am, if anyone's bothering me, quit me, and walked out. I heard you're talking to someone in Serbian before, but I don't know who. Then he left.

A couple of days later, we received clean clothes and cigarettes that our families had sent through the International Red Cross. This was also a sign to me that something is happening around us”, claims Radoschi.

The release of two Serbian journalists occurred on November 27th, when the KLA has taken them to Pristina and handed them over to O The SBE, where they personally received Mission Chief William Walker.

In that one year, as Nebojsa Radoseviqi commemorates, eight people from the Serbian media have disappeared in Kosovo. Six others have never been found.