UNHCR URGES SERBIA TO SET UP COMMISSION FOR MASS GRAVES

BELGRADE, Oct 22 (Hina) - The UNHCR office in Serbia-Montenegro on Wednesday called on local authorities to set up a special commission which would investigate mass graves in Serbia. #L# The UNHCR acting chief of mission in Belgrade, Laurie Wieseberg, suggested that the commission should consist of independent and unbiased experts. She told a news conference that progress in probes into mass graves would contribute to efforts to transfer to domestic courts the trial of four senior army and police officers, who have recently been indicted by the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal. Since the ouster of the Slobodan Milosevic regime in October 2000, several mass graves have been discovered in Serbia. They contain the bodies of ethnic Albanians killed in Kosovo and transferred to Serbia in 1999 in an attempt by the then authorities to cover up the crimes. Investigators have so far completed investigations in less than a half detected mass graves, which the UNHCR official described as a serious threat to the implementation of reforms in the country. What causes more concern is the fact that nobody has yet been indicted for those crimes, she added. (hina) ms