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War crimes covered { July 24 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/international/europe/24MILO.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/international/europe/24MILO.html
July 24, 2002
Witness Links Milosevic to a Plan to Cover Up Crimes in Kosovo
By MARLISE SIMONS
THE HAGUE, July 23 — It happened, the witness here said, in March 1999, as NATO bombs were falling on Serbia and President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia had called a meeting in his office of some of his most trusted men.
"They discussed the need for a cleaning operation," said Dragan Karleusa, a Serbian police captain, testifying on Monday at the war crimes trial of Mr. Milosevic.
The cleaning operation was to remove traces of war crimes, "to eliminate any material that might be of interest to the Hague tribunal," Captain Karleusa said. He said he did not attend the meeting, but had obtained an account by a participant.
The meeting led to a cover-up of the execution of Albanians in Kosovo, by troops sent into the Serbian province, he told the United Nations war crimes tribunal. Orders were issued for "the removal of all traces" inside Kosovo "that would be of interest to The Hague; all bodies of civilians should be dug up and transferred to different localities."
Captain Karleusa said he learned what had happened from a statement by a participant in the meeting, Rade Markovic, who was the Yugoslav chief of state security.
Captain Karleusa said he obtained a copy of the statement, made to the judicial authorities, at the Ministry of Interior last year when he was deputy chief of the police organized crime unit. He was in charge of a team investigating a truck full of bodies found in the Danube. His team also found other truckloads of bodies and five mass graves. At least some of the bodies were identified as ethnic Albanians who had identity papers issued in Kosovo, he said.
Mr. Milosevic smiled briefly on Monday when he heard a description of the meeting. Today it was his turn to speak.
"Do you really assume the head of state issued such orders to remove traces of crimes?" he asked the police captain. "Do you know about the many instructions that went out to the contrary, the orders to apprehend the perpetrators of crimes?"
He said Mr. Markovic could never have spoken freely about such a meeting because it was "absolutely untrue." If there was such a statement, he said, Mr. Markovic would have made it "under circumstances of extreme duress and torture."
The testimony of Mr. Markovic, who was part of Mr. Milosevic's inner circle during the Kosovo war, is expected later this week. He has been imprisoned in Belgrade for more than a year in connection with at least four deaths.
Mr. Milosevic, who is conducting his own defense, cross-examined Captain Karleusa for close to two and a half hours today. The captain said his team had located the mass graves near Belgrade.
Referring to publicity about the mass graves last year, Mr. Milosevic asked if it was part of the "political marketing" to prepare the public "for my going to The Hague."
He also suggested that 86 bodies found in the truck in the Danube last year were not murdered Kosovo Albanians but victims of traffickers in human beings. "Are you aware of cases where people were smuggled in refrigerator trucks?" Mr. Milosevic asked. "Yes," Captain Karleusa replied, "but not in this particular case." The bodies had wounds caused by blunt objects, he said.
Captain Karleusa said that since he began to investigate mass graves, he has received death threats, and had he not been subpoenaed, he would not have come to testify.
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