2 Americans Freed From Yugoslav Jail

A Thousand Oaks, Calif., man and a Detroit school employee were released from a Yugoslav prison Friday, and another U.S. citizen jailed there for anti-government activities will be released soon, the State Department said.

The department said the family of Veroljub Radivojevic, of Thousand Oaks, sent it word that he was released Friday and was with his relatives in Belgrade.

The department said it was continuing efforts to obtain the release of the third Yugoslav-American, Gradimir Hadzic of Los Angeles.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) learned in a telephone call from John Scanlon, the U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, that authorities there had released Peter Ivezaj, 30, of suburban Detroit.

Radivojevic and Hadzic were arrested in September while on vacation in Yugoslavia on charges of hostile activity and distribution of hostile propaganda, according to the State Department.

Ivezaj, an ethnic Albanian who has dual U.S.-Yugoslav citizenship, had been convicted this week in Titograd and sentenced to seven years in prison.

“He has been released and took a taxi to the home of relatives who live near the prison,” said Phil Shandler, Levin’s press secretary.

The State Department confirmed that Ivezaj has left the prison and said a U.S. consular officer talked with Ivezaj at his relatives’ home. It said Ivezaj will probably leave the country today.

Ivezaj was found guilty of belonging to an Albanian-American student group and of demonstrating in front of the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington in April, 1981. The protest was on behalf of ethnic Albanians who live in Yugoslavia’s autonomous province of Kosovo.

The trial and sentencing provoked objections from the State Department and the introduction by Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.) of legislation that would have revoked Yugoslavia’s most-favored-nation trading status. The State Department said Ivezaj had done nothing more than exercise his constitutional rights.

Broomfield, ranking minority member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had secured 150 co-sponsors for his legislation revoking Yugoslavia’s favored trade status within a short time of introducing the bill this week.