BELGRADE, Serbia – A former Serb college basketball player serving a two-year prison sentence for beating an American into a coma in New York state has been freed about two months early.
Miladin Kovacevic was sentenced by a Serb court for his attack on fellow Binghamton University student Bryan Steinhauer of Brooklyn in 2008 in a barroom brawl.
The Serb’s early release Monday is part of a government amnesty including over 1,000 prisoners sentenced for lesser crimes.
After the brawl, Kovacevic jumped bail in the U.S. and fled to Serbia, which refused to extradite him, angering Washington.
The Serb government eventually paid $900,000 to Steinhauer’s family as part of an agreement that also included putting Kovacevic on trial in Belgrade.
The Obama administration and Steinhauer’s family both called Kovacevic’s sentence too lenient.