WORKS AT OVCARA MASS GRAVE SITE START

ZAGREB, 2 Sept (Hina) - A team of investigators of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday started preparations for the unearthing of the Ovcara mass grave near Vukovar where the Serbs are believed to have buried 260 Croats they executed immediately after they seized Vukovar in 1991, U.N. spokesman Phillip Arnold said on Monday. #L# The ICTY team would first prepare the mass grave site and the unearthing itself should start on Thursday of Friday this week, Arnold told the Croatian news agency Hina in a phone conversation from Vukovar. Preparations for the exhumation have started despite the heavy rain which has been falling for two days. The exhumation works would take some five to six days, Arnold said, adding that an investigation for ICTY purposes would be carried out by a group of some fifteen U.S. forensic experts who are led by Doctor William Haglund. The recovered bodies would be transported to Zagreb for an autopsy and identification. It is supposed that the Ovcara mass grave hides the bodies of some 260 wounded, medical staff and civilians who were hiding in the Vukovar hospital. On 20 November 1991, the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary forces took away some 300 persons from the Vukovar hospital to a farm in the village of Ovcara, several kilometers from the town. Some of those 260 persons were killed and their bodies were buried with bulldozers. Three former JNA officers - Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin - were indicted for the crime by ICTY. The works at the Ovcara mass grave site will be filmed by a special team from Great Britain for the purposes of ICTY. The media are not allowed to the grave site. (hina) rm 021725 MET sep 96