THE HAGUE, July 22 (Hina) - During the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, a high-ranking official of Serbian Interior Ministry, Dragan Karleusa, on Monday confirmed that the then leadership of the Interior Ministry ordered the
elimination of all evidence on corpses of ethnic Albanians in a refrigerator lorry sunk in the Danube in 1999.
THE HAGUE, July 22 (Hina) - During the trial of Slobodan Milosevic
in The Hague, a high-ranking official of Serbian Interior Ministry,
Dragan Karleusa, on Monday confirmed that the then leadership of
the Interior Ministry ordered the elimination of all evidence on
corpses of ethnic Albanians in a refrigerator lorry sunk in the
Danube in 1999. #L#
"According to information we obtained from official persons with
whom we talked the then head of the public security department,
Vlastimir Djordjevic ordered the transport of bodies..." Karleusa
told the trial chamber of the UN war crimes tribunal which accused
Milosevic of genocide in Kosovo.
Karleusa carried out an investigation in the case of a refrigerator
lorry from Prizren (Kosovo) with 86 corpses pulled from the Danube
in spring 1999.
At the time (of massacre) Veljko Stojiljkovic was Interior
Minister, but an attempt to talk with him failed and we could not
reach Djordjevic either, the witness said.
After the Yugoslav media reported about the case with the
refrigerator lorry in September 1999 "the entire case was
proclaimed secret", Karleusa added.
He added that the investigation he had conducted, established that
in March 1999 the interior ministry's top officials had held talks
in Milosevic's cabinet on the need to "remove anything which might
be interesting for the Hague-based Tribunal" from Kosovo. After
that "Stojiljkovic directly entrusted Generals Djordjevic and
(Dragan) Ilic with that task," Karleusa said.
(hina) ms