Peace Negotiator Is Found Dead

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Fehmi Agani, a prominent politician and member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at February’s failed peace talks in France, was found dead today, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported.

Tanjug said Agani’s body was found by police in Lipljan, about 12 miles south of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. The agency blamed the killing on the Kosovo Liberation Army. Agani was a close aide of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leader who was allowed to leave the country for Rome on Wednesday.

Tanjug’s allegation of KLA involvement could not be independently confirmed.

“Agani was held in isolation by the so-called KLA in order to be prevented from participating in talks between Ibrahim Rugova and the Serb government,” Tanjug said. “Since Rugova went to Rome, the terrorists obviously lost interest in keeping him alive and they executed him.”

On Friday, the European Union’s chief Kosovo envoy, Wolfgang Petritsch, said in an interview with Austrian state television that Agani, who was in his 70s, had been arrested by the Serbs.