Peace Plan Highlights | Photo Gallery | Strike Assessment | News Video Archive | Strike at a Glance | Who's Who | Roots of the Conflict | Story Archive | Links | Discussion

October 12, 1999
Web posted at: 7:57 p.m. EDT (2357 GMT)

In this story: Albanian leader says attack 'disgusting' Killing believed to be first of U.N. staffer RELATED STORIES, SITES

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- A Bulgarian U.N. staffer was mobbed, beaten and executed by a group of ethnic Albanian teenagers after giving the time of day in the wrong language, police said Tuesday.

Valentin S. Krumov, 38, was shot and killed on the main street of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, near a hotel where he and other U.N. workers were staying. Officials said he was headed to dinner with two female colleagues after his first day on the job. The two other staffers were uninjured in the incident.

Officials said Krumov, who received his doctorate in political science in May from the University of Georgia, was a civilian worker and had no connection with police or the military.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Rebuilding Kosovo

Police said he was attacked by the teenagers after they asked him the time, in Serbian, and he responded, apparently in Serbian. "One individual...hit him with his fist, and others kicked him," said U.N. police Inspector Gilles Moreau.

"A large crowd gathered around the altercation. All of a sudden, a shot was heard, the crowd dispersed and the body ... was on the ground, lifeless." Krumov had been shot once in the head.

Albanian leader says attack was 'disgusting'

The attack drew denunciations from U.N. officials and vows from police to press an investigation. Reports were that a bloody jacket inscribed with "United States, New York," apparently belonging to one of the assailants, was left at the scene.

The killing was condemned by the former head of the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaci.

Thaci called the killing "a disgusting assassination ... an assassin's blow against the whole process of stabilizing the situation in Kosovo."

The chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, expressed outrage. "Our staffers here, under trying circumstances, are devoting their lives to establish peace and rebuild Kosovo," he said.

"This innocent man who came here to help Kosovo to achieve a democratic way of life was instead stopped by a crowd of thugs and an assassin's bullet."

Killing believed to be first of U.N. staffer

Krumov is believed to have been the first U.N. employee killed since the United Nations took over the administration of Kosovo in June. The same day, two other U.N. workers, a Chilean man and a Dutch woman, were killed when Hutu rebels attacked a humanitarian convey in Burundi. Nine others died in the attack.

The Pristina attack led some officials to emphasize the danger of speaking any Slavic language, such as Serbian, in Kosovo. A Polish police officer told The Associated Press that he never speaks his own language for fear he may be targeted by ethnic Albanians.

An estimated 10,000 ethic Albanians were killed and thousands more displaced during 18 months of intense Serb-led ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which ended last spring after months of NATO bombing and the entrance of international peace keeping forces into the country.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.