BELGRADE, June 7 (Hina) - Serbia's Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic admitted on Thursday that the bodies of Albanian victims from Kosovo had been "systematically" eliminated and the traces of crimes committed in the southern
Yugoslav province "systematically covered up." Evidence on crimes committed by the Serbs were withheld by Mihajlovic's predecessors at the Serb Interior Ministry, he was quoted by NIN weekly's latest issue. The new composition of the ministry has launched an investigation into the matter although it was "extremely difficult to arrive at the evidence," he said. To illustrate the systematic cover-ups, Mihajlovic said that some "bodies are even under highways." He corroborated an article in the Belgrade-based weekly Nedjeljni Telegraf which said a decision to eliminate all victims which might attract the attention of investigators with the Hague war crimes tribunal was made at a
BELGRADE, June 7 (Hina) - Serbia's Interior Minister Dusan
Mihajlovic admitted on Thursday that the bodies of Albanian victims
from Kosovo had been "systematically" eliminated and the traces of
crimes committed in the southern Yugoslav province "systematically
covered up."
Evidence on crimes committed by the Serbs were withheld by
Mihajlovic's predecessors at the Serb Interior Ministry, he was
quoted by NIN weekly's latest issue. The new composition of the
ministry has launched an investigation into the matter although it
was "extremely difficult to arrive at the evidence," he said.
To illustrate the systematic cover-ups, Mihajlovic said that some
"bodies are even under highways."
He corroborated an article in the Belgrade-based weekly Nedjeljni
Telegraf which said a decision to eliminate all victims which might
attract the attention of investigators with the Hague war crimes
tribunal was made at a meeting with former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic.
Mihajlovic also corroborated that the police, with judicial
officials' cooperation, had launched the exhumation of a mass grave
near Belgrade. The scope of that crime will be known "very soon," he
said.
The minister was asked if said grave contained only the bodies from
the Refrigerator Case, the bodies of 83 people found in a
refrigerator discovered in 1999 and later secretly buried. Reports
from the field show there might be another five or six mass graves at
the location where excavations have begun, he said.
Nedjeljni Telegraf weekly said on Wednesday the graves in question
were in Batajnica, near Belgrade. It added there were bodies of 800-
900 people buried near the "13. maj" military range of the Serb
Interior Ministry's special anti-terrorist units.
Minister Mihajlovic says the operations "were monstrous." He added
bodies "were systematically 'collected' from Kosovo and ordered to
be transferred to Belgrade."
Mihajlovic thinks Serbs "will have to face the truth about what
happened on the front-lines from Croatia and Bosnia to Kosovo."
(hina) ha sb