[Kcc-News] Serbs Incinerated Hundreds of Albanian Bodies in Lead Refinery

[Mentor Cana]

1. Serbs Incinerated Hundreds of Albanian Bodies in Lead Refinery
2. Arrest warrant re-issued for Milosevic

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Serbs Incinerated Hundreds of Albanian Bodies in Lead Refinery
Wed Jan 24 21:37:00 2001 GMT

/ADVANCE/ ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Serbian security forces
incinerated the remains of hundreds of ethnic Albanians in an industrial
furnace during the 1999 war in Kosovo, according to a new investigative
documentary by American RadioWorks(SM) (ARW), the documentary project of
Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News. The secret operation was part of a
highly organized effort by Serbia's leadership to conceal evidence of
possible war crimes from international investigators.

Burning the Evidence, a 20-minute documentary, airs Thursday, January 25,
on National Public Radio's All Things Considered(R).

Members of the Serbian police, army and intelligence services said they
took part in an effort to hide war crimes evidence by digging up corpses
from mass graves and burning them in the furnace of a lead refinery in
northern Kosovo. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
operation was coordinated by an elite unit of the Serbian security service,
under orders from close associates of former leader Slobodan Milosevic.

"The point was not to hide the bodies in graves but to totally destroy
them. It would be as if these people never existed," said one Serbian
fighter, identified in the documentary only as Branko. "I think our people
understood that sooner or later some of these western organizations like
the Hague Tribunal might come into Kosovo. We needed a good way to destroy
evidence."

War crimes investigators have been confounded by what they suspect was a
massive effort by Serbian troops to hide evidence. Thousands of Albanians
and hundreds of Serbs and Gypsies are still missing in Kosovo. The bodies
of some were later found dumped down wells, burned in homes and reburied in
ordinary cemeteries.

So far, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has
exhumed around 4,000 bodies and inspected hundreds of gravesites. An
additional 3,500 people are officially registered as missing in Kosovo,
including hundreds of Serbs and Gypsies.

The Serbian soldiers described in detail how they transported the bodies
from graves and massacre sites in refrigerated, civilian trucks to a lead
refinery in northern Kosovo. The refinery is part of a large mining complex
called Trepca, which is located near the ethnically divided city of
Mitrovica.

"Those furnaces burned at thousands of degrees," said another fighter
called Milan. "I was told that it was enough heat to destroy everything.
Every trace of the stuff they call DNA."

In an extensive tour of the Trepca complex, details of its layout and
operations closely matched the descriptions from the Serbian fighters who
said they helped incinerate the bodies. There were no visible signs of
human remains outside the lead refinery's blast furnace, the site where the
fighters said the bodies were destroyed. But nearby, reporters for American
RadioWorks saw discarded civilian clothing, including men's and women's
dress shoes.

"The Serbs learned their lesson from Bosnia, destroy the evidence," says
Suzzane Ringaardd, who coordinates victim identification in Kosovo for the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Serbian police and military sources say Slobodan Milosevic's senior
commanders stepped up efforts to destroy evidence of possible war crimes in
mid-April, 1999, shortly after NATO released satellite photographs of
suspected atrocity sites in Kosovo.

Milosevic and four other officials were later indicted for crimes against
humanity by the international tribunal. Milosevic was ousted in elections
last October. Serbia's new leadership has refused to enforce an
international arrest warrant and extradite Milosevic to the Hague.

Soon after the Kosovo war, investigators searched Trepca's mines amid
reports that Serbian forces had dumped hundreds of bodies down the
facility's deep shafts. But they found no remains. Serbian fighters told
American RadioWorks reporters that the investigators looked in the wrong
place.

This documentary, reported by MPR correspondents Michael Montgomery and
Stephen Smith, and edited by NPR's Deborah George, is the second
installment in "The Promise of Justice," an award-winning series on war
crimes and the movement for international justice.

Last week, ARW's earlier documentary on Serbian atrocities, "Massacre at
Cuska," won broadcast journalism's top award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia
Gold Baton. In February "Massacre at Cuska" was broadcast on National
Public Radio, and in November a Serbian-language version aired throughout
Yugoslavia on the independent B92 radio network. The program presented, for
the first time, detailed testimony from Serbian fighters alleging that
Slobodan Milosevic's senior generals masterminded a campaign of murder and
deportations against Kosovo Albanians, and it documents one episode of mass
killing during the Kosovo War.

"Massacre at Cuska" can be heard on http://www.americanradioworks.org

American RadioWorks produces compelling long-form documentary specials on
major policy and economic issues, social and cultural stories, and
government and public service investigations. Major funding for American
RadioWorks is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the
National Endowment for the Humanities.

Minnesota Public Radio(R) is a network of 33 stations and 19 translators.
MPR produces more national programming than any other station-based public
radio network. With 85,000 members, it has the largest listener membership
of any community-supported public radio network in the United States.

SOURCE Minnesota Public Radio
Copyright © 2000 PRNewsWire. All rights reserved.


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Arrest warrant re-issued for Milosevic

January 23, 2001 Web posted at: 12:48 PM EST (1748 GMT)

The Hague, Netherlands -- An arrest warrant for former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic has been re-issued by the United Nations' chief war
crimes prosecutor during her trip to Belgrade.

Carla Del Ponte had asked for the warrant before three days of talks with
leading politicians including president Vojislav Kostunica in the first
visit by a U.N. war crimes prosecutor to Serbia.

She is expected to demand the extradition of Milosevic, but the warrant
also includes a new call for the Belgrade authorities to freeze the assets
of Milosevic and four others.

The tribunal indicted Milosevic in May 1999 for alleged crimes against
humanity in the crackdown he ordered on Kosovo Albanians, which ended after
78 days of NATO airstrikes.

Kostunica, who replaced Milosevic in October following a popular uprising,
has been a staunch critic of the tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands,
criticising it for allegedly being "politicised."

The tribunal's request had previously been restricted to U.N. members and
Switzerland, which at the time excluded Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia was admitted into the U.N. on November 1, 2000, after eight
years in the wilderness.

Milosevic, and the other four -- Serbian President Milan Milutinovic,
former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, ex-Yugoslav Defence
Minister Dragoljub Ojdanic and former Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko
Stojilkovic -- are indicted for alleged crimes against humanity.

The new warrants, issued by Judge David Hunt, called on Belgrade to make
enquiries to discover whether Milosevic and the others held assets in the
country and to freeze them until the accused are taken into custody.

Hunt also stressed that Yugoslavia, in accordance with a U.N. Security
Council resolution, was obliged to co-operate fully with the tribunal.

Kostunica initially said he would not meet Del Ponte but changed his mind
last week, saying he wanted to discuss NATO's use of depleted uranium
munitions in Kosovo and other issues.

Repeating his main argument -- that domestic law bars the extradition of
Yugoslav nationals -- he said there "must be co-operation with the tribunal
(only) within the existing Yugoslav laws."

That interpretation has been challenged by other ranking Yugoslav
officials, who argue that the U.N. status of the tribunal means it is
"extra-territorial" and as a result extraditions would be permitted.

Del Ponte also planned to present Yugoslav authorities with new evidence
against key suspects in atrocities committed during Balkan wars of the past
decade.

Kostunica has suggested that Milosevic and others could be tried by a
Yugoslav court where Milosevic may have to answer for such offences as
corruption, vote-rigging, fraud and leading the country into four
destructive Balkan wars.

During Del Ponte's visit, Belgrade was also expected to officially open a
tribunal office.

A minor pro-Milosevic group, the Patriotic Alliance, called for street
protests against Del Ponte's visit.

It said that instead of "putting the entire Serb nation" on trial, The
Hague tribunal should charge NATO with "killing the Serb children and
destroying the country" during its 1999 airstrikes against Yugoslavia.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.