BINGHAMTON, N.Y.-Congressional members from New York have asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pressure Serbia into returning a 20-year-old basketball player who fled the U.S. after being charged with a violent assault on a college classmate.

Miladin Kovacevic is among three men charged with first-degree assault and first-degree gang assault in a May 4 fight at a Binghamton bar that left Bryan Steinhauer near death. Steinhauer, 22, of New York City, remains in critical condition and has not regained consciousness.

Kovacevic was released from jail June 6 when his parents posted $100,000 bail. The Serbia native surrendered his passport, but three days later he flew from Newark Liberty International Airport to Frankfurt, Germany.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Kovacevic was issued an emergency passport by someone in the consulate office, reportedly Serbian Deputy Consul Igor Milosevic.

On Friday, Schumer demanded that the Serbian government come clean about its involvement in the case and help locate and return Kovacevic to the U.S. or face possible sanctions.

He has asked Rice to revoke Milosevic's diplomatic immunity so he, too, can be prosecuted.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey, an upstate New York Democrat, joined in the appeal to Rice.

"The U.S. must make it clear to all foreign governments that we absolutely will not tolerate their obstruction of justice," Hinchey said.

Schumer said Friday night that the Serbian government had recalled Milosevic to the Eastern European nation. Calls to the Serbian consulate in New York and embassy in Washington rang unanswered Friday night, and an embassy spokespeople did not immediately respond to e-mail messages.

The FBI and Interpol have issued warrants for Kovacevic's arrest. His departure from the United States was being investigated by the state and justice departments.

State Department officials have had several meetings with their Serbian counterparts about the case and continue to monitor it, department spokesman Rob McInturff said Friday.

"We do think it's a very important case," he said.

The Serbian consulate general issued a statement Thursday saying it was never their "intention that Mr. Kovacevic flee the country."

Kovacevic's parents said he returned home on his own passport without special arrangements. It is not uncommon for Serbians to also possess Croatian passports, they said.

Kovacevic's parents, who live in Serbia, said they helped their son flee the U.S. because he was unfairly targeted.

He 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," his father, orthopedic surgeon Peter Kovacevic, told the New York Post.

The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Kovacevic had been recruited to play basketball at Binghamton University.

Branka Kovacevic, a psychiatrist, said she urged her son to flee the U.S. after he was bailed out "because it had become a media circus where his voice was not being heard."

The Kovacevics said their son might be willing to return to the United States when the tumult subsides.