BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The United States on Tuesday formally demanded the arrest and extradition of former Binghamton University basketball player Miladin Kovacevic, who fled the U.S. for his native Serbia in June after being charged with severely beating a classmate in May.

The demand was made by U.S. Ambassador to Belgrade Cameron Munter through Serbian Foreign Ministry, the U.S. Embassy and Serbian ministry officials said.

“This case is a top priority for the U.S. government,” Munter said in a statement.

“I met formally today with senior most officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to formally request that Kovacevic return to the United States to face justice,” Munter said. “Serbian officials have assured us they are prepared to cooperate and we are currently exploring all possible options.”

The two countries’ treaties effectively bar them from extraditing their own citizens. But legal experts said loopholes could be found that would allow the return of the basketball player since he fled the U.S. to avoid prosecution.

The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Kovacevic, known as “Minja,” was arrested May 4 after an early-morning fight at the Rathskeller, at 92 State St. in Downtown Binghamton, left BU senior Bryan Steinhauer near death.

Steinhauer, a 22-year-old from the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, remains in critical condition at a Long Island hospital, and has not regained consciousness since the attack.

Kovacevic, 20, was summarily suspended from BU in connection with the assault. He was a sophomore at the time of the incident. Kovacevic last played for the school’s Division I men’s basketball team in the 2006-07 season.

U.S. police said Kovacevic was at the bar with friends when Steinhauer danced with one of their girlfriends. Witnesses told police the men exchanged words before a fight ensued.

Kovacevic is accused of repeatedly kicking Steinhauer in the head. City of Binghamton police received a call about the incident at 1:23 a.m. on May 4. Kovacevic had already left the bar when police arrived. He was found and detained by New York State University Police at 12:40 p.m. on BU’s Vestal campus.

After several weeks in jail, Kovacevic was released June 6 when his family posted $100,000 bail. He left the U.S. on June 9 out of Newark Airport via a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany, according to a report in the Press & Sun-Bulletin. He proceeded to Serbia from there.

As a condition of his release, Kovacevic surrendered his Serbian passport, but Serbian Deputy Consul Igor Milosevic allegedly furnished Kovacevic with travel documents. The Serbian Foreign Ministry said Milosevic is facing disciplinary action for issuing the new documents.

New York congressmen have asked U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pressure Serbia to immediately help locate Kovacevic and return him to the United States, or face possible sanctions.

“The case of Miladin Kovacevic, who is reported to have brutally beaten a fellow student half his size even after he was unconscious, and then fled the United States while awaiting trial, is shocking,” Munter said in the statement.

“We are appalled at the behavior of the Serbian Consulate, which inappropriately issued an emergency travel document to Kovacevic after he was ordered to relinquish his passport and remain in the U.S. by the presiding judge,” Munter said. “I am personally outraged by this tragedy, and by the suffering caused to Bryan Steinhauer and his family.”

Kovacevic’s family, in an interview with The New York Post from the Serbian town of Kula, said they had helped their son flee the United States because the “media circus” in New York had unfairly targeted him.

His father, Petar Kovacevic, was quoted as saying the student was “a victim of small-town values ganging up against a foreigner. He was targeted because he was a Serb and a very large man.”

Kovacevic’s parents said he also has a Croatian passport that he used to return home and that no special arrangements were made.

On the court, Kovacevic played in 18 games for BU as a freshman, in the 2006-07 season. He averaged 1.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in 9.3 minutes per game. He was redshirted in the 2007-08 season, the first under new head coach Kevin Broadus, because of injury.

— Staff reports contributed to this article