Joyful American Returns From Yugoslav Jail

A naturalized American jailed in Yugoslavia for alleged anti-Yugoslav activities in the United States screamed with joy on returning to the United States and said he was beaten and starved in captivity.

“I am glad to be away from a communist country, a place where you can’t speak, you can’t sing, you can’t be a human being,” Petar Ivezaj, 30, told reporters on arriving in New York’s Kennedy International Airport late Wednesday.

“I’m proud to be an American,” he said, fighting back tears as he greeted his brother, Frano, 28, with hugs and kisses.

Petar Ivezaj, a naturalized American from Sterling Heights, Mich., who had not legally renounced his Yugoslav citizenship, was freed last week.

Seven-Year Sentence

He had been tried and convicted in a Yugoslavian court for “crimes against the state” and sentenced last week to seven years in prison. He had taken part in a peaceful anti-Yugoslav demonstration in Washington, D.C., in 1981.

“I was treated like an animal,” Ivezaj said. “I was beaten and for seven days I was starved.”

Ivezaj told the Detroit News that a few hours after he was released, Yugoslav secret police warned him to leave the country immediately with a message for other naturalized Americans wishing to visit their homeland.

“They told me that there will be more arrests, that it won’t be as easy to get people out as it was this time,” he said.