Pentagon: No Evidence Serbian Citizens Killed In Libyan Strikes

 The U.S. Defense Department says it has no evidence to corroborate Serbia's claim that two of its citizens were killed in an air strike in Libya last week.

Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. officials had reviewed photos of the dead Serbian citizens and gathered more information about the February 19 strike.

"So far we have not seen any credible information that would indicate that these people were killed in the strike that we conducted," Davis said in a statement on February 24.

U.S. officials said the attack killed dozens of people and was primarily aimed at Nureddine Chuchane, a senior Islamic State operative blamed for two terror attacks in Tunisia last year.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said two embassy staff members who had been kidnapped in Libya in November were believed to be killed by the air.

There was no immediate reaction by Serbia to the Pentagon statement.
  rferl.org
24/2/16
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• Islamic State camp in Libya attacked by US planes

• Serbian embassy employees "died from detonation"

Jovica Stepic and Sladjana Stankovic died "from the consequences of a detonation and have not been tortured," the autopsies carried out in Belgrade have shown.

Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic confirmed this for B92 on Wednesday.

Stankovic and Stepic were employees of the Serbian embassy in Libya kidnapped in Sabratha in early November 2015, and held hostage until February 19, when they died in an airstrike carried out by the United States.

• Selakovic told B92 that the autopsies performed at the military clinic VMA showed unequivocally that they died from the blast.

• He also confirmed that the Serbian citizens were "relocated to the location targeted in the air strike two days before the bombing that killed them." [b92.net]