Serbs looking for possible grave containing 350 bodies of Kosovars

RUDNICA, June 5 – Serbian authorities on Tuesday began to investigate what appears to be a mass grave containing the bodies of more than 350 Kosovo Albanians.
Several witnesses claim that at the beginning of June 1999, during the NATO bombing campaign, as many as 350 bodies were transported in four trucks from unknown locations in Kosovo and buried in the Ra۫a region in southern Serbia.
War Crimes Prosecutors filed a request with the District Court to launch an investigation into the allegations in order to determine whether the site in question contained the bodies.
The suspected grave site is located between Serbian police (MUP) and KFOR check points near the boundary with Kosovo.
Milan Dilpari欠a judge with the Belgrade War Crimes Court, told reporters he would initiate inquiry proceedings in case the excavation proved that the site was, in fact, a mass grave, adding that the investigation could not have begun earlier owing to the swamp-like terrain next to an artificial lake in Majdan.
“We came to check claims that at this location lie the remains of an undetermined number of people,” investigative judge Milan Diplari桳aid. “We don’t know if there is even one body.”
Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutors, said witnesses reported having seen four trucks unload bodies in the area of Raska, near the border with Kosovo, in 1999 during a Serbian crackdown against separatist Kosovo Albanians.
“We have serious indications that more than 350 bodies might have been buried there,” Vekaric said.
Representatives of relevant domestic and international institutions and organizations will be present as forensic investigators probe the site.
This would be the third mass grave containing victims of Slobodan Milosevic’s war against Kosovo Albanians. Since 2000, about 800 bodies have been discovered in two mass graves in Serbia in what appeared to be the former regime’s attempt to cover up atrocities committed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, was in Belgrade, meanwhile, pressing Serbian officials to do more to capture the remaining five key war crimes fugitives, most notably wartime Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic.
Del Ponte met on Tuesday with her Serbian counterpart and Serbian security officials responsible for capturing the fugitives.
The European Union last year suspended pre-membership talks with Serbia after Belgrade failed to meet two deadlines for the extradition of Mladic to The Hague.
Del Ponte’s next report is due in a few weeks.