A Kosovo Albanian mayor and two of his bodyguards were shot dead today, a day after the U.N.-run Yugoslav province held a peaceful municipal election, international and local officials said.
A spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which organised Saturday's vote, told a news conference that Mayor Uke Bytyci of the small town of Suva Reka and two bodyguards were killed.
It was the worst such violence for some time in Kosovo, where shootings and other crime have abated considerably over the past year. Kosovo has been a de facto UN protectorate since NATO bombing in 1999 ended harsh Serb rule.