Girondist, you’re so right about the comment boxes. Part of the background: for the last few years, the Kostunica government systematically demonized the United States as the great orchestrator of the anti-Serb conspiracy. If this had happened in Belgium, there wouldn’t be the same resonance.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to resolve well. Even the current Serbian government is unlikely to extradite; it’s legally difficult (don’t ask) and would inflame public opinion at a time when they already have their hands full. Meanwhile, there’s not much the US can actually do. Most of the possible solutions (shutting down student visas for Serbs) are useless and would really do more harm than good.

So, the most likely outcome looks to be “nothing happens” — Kovacevic goes about his life, and his victim goes about what’s left of it.

Doug M.

In reality, the level of media coverage is easily explained by the severity of injury and the dramatic flight (plus the visuals of an archetypical thug and nerdish honor student victim). And if there is a rush to judgement here, its more likely to do with generic anti-Jock stereotypes and victim-sympathy than anti-Serbian bias. NATO, Kosovo, orthodoxy, the Ottomans and Jansovenec really don’t come into it.

Unity occasionally makes the Serbs look like idiots.