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Bosnian Serb Official Confronts Dead at Cerska
The Serb official listened without any outward sign of emotion as Haglund described how the victims were lined up on an embankment and shot at close range. "There were a lot of massacres in this area," he said. From wire service reports
"These people were lined up on this side of the road and then shot," the forensic team leader, William D. Haglund, told Goran Neskovic, the deputy justice minister of the Bosnian Serb republic. "Everyone we’ve found so far was wearing civilian clothing."
Investigators digging at the mass grave in Cerska, 17 miles northwest of Srebrenica, have disputed Serb assertions that most of the dead were soldiers shot while fighting. They say the 134 victims uncovered so far had their hands wired behind their backs and were shot after being lined up atop an embankment.
Nearly 7,000 residents of Srebrenica are missing and feared dead a year after Bosnian Serbs overran the Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia. Testimony of survivors and other evidence suggests that most were massacred by the Bosnian Serbs -- the war’s worst atrocity. The Cerska dig is being conducted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, which has indicted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, his military commander, for their alleged roles in the Srebrenica massacre.
Reporters were kept away from Thursday’s conversation between Neskovic and Haglund, but were still able to overhear Haglund explaining how the victims died. Haglund said his team had removed 134 sets of human remains after more than two weeks of digging at the Cerska site and expected to find a total of about 150 victims.
"There were a lot of massacres in this area," Neskovic responded, referring to the Bosnian Serbs’ assertion that any massacres of Muslims in the region were to avenge the slayings of hundreds of Serb villagers by Muslim troops.
Serb authorities earlier maintained that all bodies found around Srebrenica were of soldiers killed in battle. This time they told ICTY the Muslims were killed in revenge for their previous massacre of Serbs around Srebrenica. But Bill Stuebner, acting head of ICTY office in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, dismissed the argument.
"Revenge is never a justification," Stuebner said. "We know there were a lot of ugly things that happened here and the Tribunal is looking into all those things... But criminals are criminals and victims are victims."
Haglund said the team would probably pull out the last remains Thursday and remove them Friday to an undisclosed site on territory held by the Muslim-Croat federation for examination and identification. The team plans to begin working Sunday at nearby Nova Kasaba -- in an area identified last year by U.S. spy satellite photographs as possibly containing as many as 2,700 bodies of Srebrenica victims, investigators said.
"We will probably finish here today. We got 16 more bodies plus remainders and it's going to take us to about 150 (bodies)," team leader William Haglund told reporters. The team of experts, sent by the international war crimes tribunal on former Yugoslavia (ICTY), started excavating the first of several suspected mass tombs near the former Muslim enclave of Srebrenica 11 days ago.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, investigators uncovered 30 bodies of Muslim victims in Zerovanj, 15½ miles northwest of Sarajevo, many with their hands tied. In the northwestern village of Kamen, Serbs spent a second day Wednesday exhuming bodies of their soldiers and civilians from a mass grave in Muslim-Croat federation territory. Investigators said the site, and two others nearby, could yield as many as 120 bodies.
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CERSKA, Bosnia, July 18 (AP) -- The first Bosnian Serb official to visit a mass grave being exhumed by war crimes investigators listened impassively Thursday to a description of how Bosnian Serb forces summarily executed Muslim civilians.
Neskovic listened without any outward sign of emotion as Haglund described how the victims were lined up on an embankment and shot at close range, with the spent cartridges scattered among their bodies.
Berserkistan, July 16 · 86 Bodies Excavated from Srebrenica Mass Grave at Cerska
Berserkistan, July 12 · Cerska Victims Not Killed in Battle Say Investigators
Berserkistan, July 12 · NATO and Bosnian Serbs Blamed for Failure of Finnish Mission
Berserkistan, July 11 · Serbs Celebrate Srebrenica as Cerska Dig Continues
Berserkistan, July 10 · Body Count Rises to More than 40 at Cerska
Berserkistan, July 3 · Mladic Promised Safety to Srebrenica Muslims
Berserkistan, May 29 · Documentary Claims Serbia Provided Srebrenica Arms
Berserkistan, Massacre Hill Jim Bartlett in Bosnia's Killing Fields
Berserkistan, Ghosts in the Woods Team Berserkistan Investigates a Srebrenica Massacre Site
SREBRENICA
Serbs Massacre Muslims in "Safe Area" of Srebrenica
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Reports concerning human rights abuses in Bosnia Intac Access
Major War Criminals/Suspects CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia CalTech's Bosnia Site
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