SERBIAN INTERIOR MINISTER CONFIRMS EXISTENCE OF MASS GRAVES

BELGRADE, June 5 (Hina) - Serbian police is checking the locations of two more possible mass graves with as yet unidentified number of bodies, Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said today, confirming the Ministry was at the moment securing the exhumation of one grave "on the territory of Belgrade". Mihajlovic refused to comment in any of the three locations, just confirming that the mentioned exhumation began on May 31. He believes the grave contains the remains of unidentified victims of the "Refrigerator truck" affair. Women, children, elderly persons and people wearing Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms were killed and placed in a refrigerator truck in Kosovo, which was subsequently pushed into the Danube River, doors sealed. The affair broke out about a month ago when a diver spoke about having participated in a secret police operation of removing the truck out of the Danube near the town of Kladovo. The refrigerator truck was destroyed by explosive and the bodies of, allegedly, 83 people were buried at an unknown location between Belgrade and Novi Sad. "Preliminary information from the exhumation shows the victims were from Kosovo, killed at the beginning of NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia. The operation of removing the bodies was clearly done during the time of the strikes," he said. Commenting of controversies about the involvement of the Yugoslav military top echelons into the affair, Mihajlovic recalled that all troops, including the police, were during the war situation in 1999, "placed under the command of the troops and commands of the Yugoslav Army". (hina) lml sb