BELGRADE, April 20 (Hina) - ICTY Deputy Chief Prosecutor Graham Blewitt has ruled out the possibility of Yugoslav forensic experts' participation in the identification of victims who will be exhumed in Knin (southern Croatia).
Investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Croatian forensic experts started an investigation in the Knin cemetery a few days ago. They said they would begin the exhumation of corpses next Tuesday and the bodies would be transferred to Zagreb for identification. The Croatian government granted a request of the ICTY Prosecutor's Office to unearth some graves at the Knin cemetery in order to establish the cause of death of those buried in the Knin graveyard in summer 1995 after the Croatian army and police liberated the area previously held by Serb rebels. In the recent years, Croatian human rights groups asserted that more than
BELGRADE, April 20 (Hina) - ICTY Deputy Chief Prosecutor Graham
Blewitt has ruled out the possibility of Yugoslav forensic experts'
participation in the identification of victims who will be exhumed
in Knin (southern Croatia).
Investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Croatian forensic experts started an
investigation in the Knin cemetery a few days ago. They said they
would begin the exhumation of corpses next Tuesday and the bodies
would be transferred to Zagreb for identification.
The Croatian government granted a request of the ICTY Prosecutor's
Office to unearth some graves at the Knin cemetery in order to
establish the cause of death of those buried in the Knin graveyard
in summer 1995 after the Croatian army and police liberated the area
previously held by Serb rebels. In the recent years, Croatian human
rights groups asserted that more than 300 corpses had been buried in
the Knin cemetery. Hague investigators expect to find 253 bodies of
the Serbs killed in the wider Knin area.
Blewitt dismissed the possibility of Yugoslav representatives'
participation in this probe, in a letter which he forwarded to
Gradimir Nalic, the Yugoslav President's advisor on human rights.
In reply to Nalic's letter of 18 April, Blewitt said he would accept
that Belgrade might send observers to attend the process of
exhumation, if Zagreb gave a permission for that, read a statement
issued by the Office of the Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.
(hina) ms