[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} NEWS: ABC/AFP: Authorities complete exhumation of bodies from war in Kosovo / With Exhumation over, Clearer Picture of Atrocities in Kosovo Emerges (Nov 23, 2000)

[Wolfgang Plarre]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-22nov2000-98.htm

Authorities complete exhumation of bodies from war in Kosovo 

The task of exhuming the bodies of victims of the war in Kosovo is now
complete and the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal is in a position to
draw up a clearer picture of the atrocities committed, the chief
prosecutor said today.
     "We have finished our exhumation program and can now build up a
complete picture of the extent and pattern of crimes," Carla del Ponte
said.
     She said almost 4,000 bodies or parts of bodies have been exhumed
and examined.
     But she accepted that even after two years work, the final death
toll from the 1999 Serb terror campaign against ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo could not be fully established. 
     "It will never be possible to provide an accurate figure for the
number of people killed, because of deliberate attempts to burn the
bodies or to conceal them in other ways," she said. 
     This year, the tribunal's team of workers in Kosovo have located
325 mass graves and exhumed 1,577 bodies, having dug up 2,108 corpses at
15 sites in 1999. 
     A spokeswoman for Ms del Ponte said: "The task of the tribunal is
not to provide complete figures. We have enough evidence with the
exhumations conducted until now." 

© 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
_______________________________________________________________________
http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=223314&section=Kosovo

With Exhumation over, Clearer Picture of Atrocities in Kosovo Emerges

THE HAGUE, Nov 23, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The grisly task of
exhuming the bodies of victims of the war in Kosovo is now complete and
the UN war crimes tribunal is in a position to draw up a clearer picture
of the atrocities committed, the chief prosecutor said Wednesday.
     "We have finished our exhumation program and can now build up a
complete picture of the extent and pattern of crimes," Carla del Ponte
said, adding that "almost 4,000 bodies or parts of bodies have been
exhumed and examined."
     But she accepted that even after two years' work, the final death
toll from the 1999 Serb terror campaign against ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo could not be fully established.
     "It will never be possible to provide an accurate figure for the
number of people killed, because of deliberate attempts to burn the
bodies or to conceal them in other ways," she said.
     This year, the tribunal's team of workers in Kosovo have located
325 mass graves and exhumed 1,577 bodies, having dug up 2,108 corpses at
15 sites in 1999.
     A spokeswoman for del Ponte said here: "The task of the Tribunal is
not to provide complete figures. We have enough evidence with the
exhumations conducted until now."
     Although del Ponte's announcement was made in an address to the UN
security council in New York on Monday, its contents were published by
the tribunal here Tuesday. 

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)


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