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| Bryan Steinhauer, left, and his parents Marlene and Richard Steinhauer listen during a press conference Wednesday April 22, 2009 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. AP |
Posted: Friday, 13 November 2009 1:24PM
Serbian Hearings in Attack on NY Student Set To Begin
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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP/1010 WINS) -- Pretrial hearings in the case of a Serb accused of beating a fellow student into a coma in the United States will begin in December, a Serbian court said Thursday.
READ: Brooklyn Student Beaten into Coma Speaks Out
Miladin Kovacevic, a 23-year-old former basketball player at Binghamton University, jumped bail and fled the U.S. last year after being accused of assaulting Bryan Steinhauer in a Binghamton bar in May 2008. Kovacevic was provided with emergency travel documents by Serbian diplomats in New York
A Belgrade district court said in a statement that witnesses to the brawl will testify from the U.S. on Dec. 1 via a video link. The statement did not say whether the closed-door hearings would also include Steinhauer.
The case had strained relations between the United States and Serbia. Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened, first as a U.S. senator and later as secretary of state, as did U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, to make sure Kovacevic was prosecuted.
The 260-pound (118-kilogram) Kovacevic was accused of assaulting the 130-pound (59-kilogram) Steinhauer in a Binghamton bar, in upstate New York, repeatedly kicking him in the chest and head.
Witnesses told New York police that the two men exchanged harsh words after Steinhauer danced with the girlfriend of one of Kovacevic's friends.
The beating fractured Steinhauer's skull and left him with a severe brain injury. Now 23, he awoke from his coma in August 2008, three months after the beating.
The Serbian government has paid the Steinhauer family $900,000 as part of a deal to prosecute Kovacevic in Serbia. Since the attack, Kovacevic has lived freely in Serbia, training with a local basketball team and advocating an anti-Western political party.
Sanel Softic, a Bosnian man accused along with Kovacevic and another man in the near-fatal beating, has pleaded guilty in New York to felony assault.
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TM & Copyright 2009 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO & EYE Logo TM & Copyright 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. TheAssociated Press contributed to this report.
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