Serbs Also Killed In Racak, ICTY indictment has no legal value
1. Ranta on Racak: No interest on Serb victims;
ICTY indictment based on the Walker's statement with no
legal value
2. Serbs also killed in Racak “massacre” says investigator
3. AFP, Reuters, April-June 2002:
Milosevic Says Kosovo Massacre Staged by Rebels.
Milosevic Says Racak Was a Battle, Not a Massacre.
Milosevic denouncs Racak massacre as set-up.
Milosevic and Walker clash in court over Racak massacre.
4. "il Manifesto": OSCE LIED ABOUT RACAK (April 9, 2000)
SEE ALSO:
The facts behind the "massacre"
in the village of Racak in Kosovo
THE RACAK FILE: TRUTHS AND MANIPULATION
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/ddj/Racak/Tiker/RacakFile.html
Massacre Or Not? (by Stephen Gowans, May 6, 2002)
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans30.html
=== 1 ===
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Mar 20 Gen 2004 13:03:07 Europe/Rome
A: Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] ICTY indictment on Racak has no legal value
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Mar 20 Gen 2004 12:31:36 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Ranta: ICTY indictment based on the Walker's statement with no
legal value
No interest on Serb victims
Markus Bickel, Berliner Zeitung, January 17, 2004
Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta said the work of the Hague tribunal
regarding the so-called Racak massacre was incomprehensible. The former
head of the forensic team the European Union sent to the
Kosovo-Albanian village of Racak in January 1999 to investigate the
events there, in a conversation with Berliner Zeitung, criticized the
UN tribunal for not following up the evidence that there was heavy
fighting between Serb soldiers and the Kosovo-Albanian fighters during
the night of January 15-16, 1999 in the Racak-region.
Western politicians used the tragedy in the village of Racak, where 40
Albanians died exactely 5 years ago, to prove to the public that the
upcoming NATO attack on Yugoslavia was necessary.
US diplomat William Walker played the leading role. The chief of the
OSCE mission in Kosovo immediately accused the Serbs of having killed
45 unarmed Albanian civilians at close range in Racak. The Serbian side
rejected this interpretation und spoke instead about KLA soldiers
killed in battle.
Pictures not published
She knew, that at that time "KLA-fighters were buried around Racak,"
said Ranta. "At that time I received information that proved that
several Serb soldiers had been killed as well. Unfortunately, we will
never know the exact number of Serb soldiers that died that night." It
would be appropriate "to ask the tribunal why they are not interested
in that number."
Ranta criticized the indictment against former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic in the case of Racak for mostly following the Walker
version. "When Ambassador Walker said that there was a massacre at
Racak, this statement had no legal value. I declared at that time that
the OSCE-observers forgot to take all steps necessary to secure a crime
scene: isolating the area, refusing admission to all unauthorized
persons and colletinig all material evidence.
Ranta demanded that in addition to the OSCE pictures the tribunal also
use the pictures taken by two additional photographers, shot several
hours prior to the arrival of OCSE-observers.
The pictures show "that at least one of the bodies was moved afterwards
..." that body is not seen on OSCE-pictures."
Left in the lurch
In the days prior to the NATO-attack on Yugoslavia it was clear "that a
bunch of governments were interested in a version of Racak that blamed
only the Serb side," said Ranta. "But I could not provide this
version." Her instructions came from the German diplomat Pauls. The
representative of the then-German EU-presidency asked for a written
statement.
"Afterwards, I had to show these personal statements to William Walker,
who was obviously not amused when he read it." Still, she agreed to
take part in the important press conference on March 17, 1999. "At that
(conference), I was sitting with the German ambassador to Belgrade,
Gruber, and a Finnish diplomat on the podium. I hoped that those
gentlemen would support me." But that was not the case. "I rather had
the feeling that I was left in the lurch," said Ranta.
As a result of the Walker dominated press-conference most of the media
accepted the version of a Serb massacre of Albanian civilians as proven.
A few days later the NATO-air attacks on Yugoslavia began.
(Translated from German by C.Schuetz & J.Catalinotto)
---
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
=== 2 ===
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=26508&order=priority&style=headlines
B92 - January 19, 2004
Serbs also killed in Racak “massacre” says
investigator
BELGRADE -- Monday – Five years after the alleged
massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak which
eventually led to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,
Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta, who led forensic
investigations into the case, has said for the first
time that Serb security troops were also killed.
Ranta told B92 today that she had received information
about the death of Serb troops in Racak in 1999.
“I was told there victims of both Serbian forces and
the Kosovo Liberation Army murdered in Racak on
Friday, January 15, 1999. I didn’t see the list of
Serb victims. I was shown only a list of victims from
the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army, she said.
Asked why, of 45 bodies transferred from Racak to a
nearby mosque, only forty were eventually delivered to
the Pristina Forensic Institute, Ranta said she had
did not know.
She also questioned why photographs taken before the
arrival of international monitors had not been
published. Instead, only those taken by OSCE monitors
had appeared in public.
=== 3 ===
Reuters. 15 April 2002.
Milosevic Says Kosovo Massacre Staged by Rebels.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic at his trial on Monday accused
separatist Kosovo Albanian guerrillas of fabricating an alleged
atrocity by Serb forces in 1999 in a bid to spur a shocked West into
attacking Yugoslavia.
The killing of about 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak in January 1999
shocked the outside world and was widely credited with stiffening
NATO's resolve to launch its 11-week campaign of air strikes against
Yugoslavia two months later.
The Hague tribunal heard last week from a Western observer that dozens
of unarmed men dressed in slippers and rubber boots were found shot in
the head at Racak in 1999 after Serb forces entered the village.
Milosevic disputed the testimony.
Milosevic told the war crimes court that ethnic Albanian Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas shifted corpses around Racak to an
open mass grave as part of a ruse to convince Western observers that
Serb forces had butchered villagers. He said Serb forces had only
killed KLA guerrillas in gun battles.
"It may be, as Serb authorities claim, and many Europeans tended to
believe, that the victims were in fact killed in the shoot-out reported
by police and then aligned to give the appearance of a massacre,"
Milosevic said quoting from an Italian press report.
The 60-year-old accused, who is conducting his own defense at the
United Nations court against charges he has rejected as "false,"
vigorously challenged testimony that Racak's villagers had been gunned
down.
Retired British general Karel Drewienkiewicz acknowledged that a fierce
battle had taken place between KLA guerrillas and Serb forces at Racak
and that there had been a "lapse" of some 15 hours overnight before
Western observers viewed the scene.
Last week Drewienkiewicz told the court he saw men shot in the head at
Racak. They had been dressed in carpet slippers and rubber boots.
Since his trial opened in February Milosevic has accuses the West and
Islamic militant group al-Qaeda of supporting a "terrorist" campaign by
the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army to destabilize the Balkans.
---
Reuters. 13 May 2002
Milosevic Says Racak Was a Battle, Not a Massacre.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic sought to show judges at his war crimes
trial Monday that a 1999 Serb attack in Kosovo was not a civilian
massacre but a legitimate battle with armed rebels.
The former Yugoslav leader, who is conducting his own defense, used
news clips and documents in a bid to show that journalists and
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors
were in and around the village of Racak as Yugoslav police entered in
January 1999.
"Is it possible the police called in the journalists and the OSCE as
they were carrying out a massacre?" Milosevic asked Karel
Drewienkiewicz in two hours of tetchy cross-examination about the
alleged Racak massacre.
Milosevic, on trial since February, insisted the sound be turned up on
footage of Racak, saying artillery pounding and ripples of gunfire in
the background were evidence of fighting.
Milosevic, who leaned back in his chair for much of the session and
gestured with his spectacles, frequently made reference to the NATO
bombings and cited journalists who had speculated that the Racak
Albanians had been killed in battle.
Each time he was reeled in by presiding Judge Richard May, reminded of
time constraints and urged to focus on the witness.
---
AFP. 22 May 2002
Milosevic denouncs Racak massacre as set-up.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday again denounced as fake
the 1999 massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak, saying Albanian
separatists staged the event that was a catalyst for NATO's 11-week
bombing campaign.
In cross-examining French medical expert Eric Baccard, Milosevic
challenged allegations that the 45 ethnic Albanian men recovered in the
central Kosovo village were slain in a cold-blooded murder.
"Have you heard of the altogether credible assumption that the corpses
had been moved and taken from several other places to the site at which
they were found?" Milosevic asked.
The Serb authorities have always maintained that the bodies found by
international observers on a hill near Racak in January 1999 were the
corpses of fighters for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), killed during
a gun battle with Serb forces and moved deliberately to the site by the
Kosovo Albanians to suggest a mass killing.
Baccard, the tribunal's chief pathologist in Kosovo, told Milosevic
that his work was based on autopsies and did not take into account the
hypothesis of outside tampering with the corpses.
---
AFP. 12 June 2002
Milosevic and Walker clash in court over Racak massacre.
THE HAGUE -- Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and US
observer William Walker who led the international verification mission
(KVM) during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo, clashed in court Wednesday
over their opposing explanations for the massacre in Racak.
Walker said Milosevic's claim that the killings in Racak were staged by
rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "ludicrous."
The former Yugoslav president has repeatedly said during his trial that
the 45 Albanian men found dead in Racak on January 15th, 1999, were in
fact KLA fighters killed in regular battle dressed up to look like
civilians with the intention of implicated the Serb forces in a
massacre.
Walker, a former US ambassador, headed the KVM sent by the Organisation
for Cooperation and Security in Europe to monitor a cease fire agreed
on by Milosevic and US envoy Richard Holbrooke in October 1998.
During his cross examination of the witness, Milosevic showed several
photographs of bodies found in Racak where no bloodstains appeared to
be visible on the ground.
The former president, who is representing himself, also showed two
pictures apparently of the same corpse, one showing blood and the other
without blood stains.
"This scene has been staged or rigged," Milosevic charged.
=== 4 ===
Italian newspaper "il Manifesto":
OSCE LIED ABOUT RACAK
Rome, April 09, 2000: "There was no massacre in Racak", says today the
Italian daily Il Manifesto, citing the results of the inquiry recently
launched by the German daily Berliner Zeitung. "The evidence clearly
show what really happened: there was no mass murder in Racak". "Those
were probably the bodies of the KLA terrorists who had died on January
15th".
This had happened "only a day before William Walker, head of the
verifiers of the OSCE screamed about the slaughter of the civilians,
pointing his finger at the Yugoslav Army", reminds Tiziana Boari, Il
Manifesto journalist.
The confirmation about the non-existence of the massacre in Racak comes
from the report of the Finnish pathologists on autopsy. This report
exists for more than a year, but was deliberately hidden from the
public. However, it suddenly
reached the editorial offices of the German daily, Il Manifesto
explains.
"It is obvious that the victims were not killed at close range",
confirmed professor Klaus Pueschel, director of the Medical institute
of the Hamburg University, who has examined the protocols of the
autopsies carried out by the Finnish doctors, upon the request of the
Berliner daily paper. Pueschel also
confirmed that the Finnish doctors had not applied the method of the
paraffin glove, which would have proven for sure the number of the
victims who participated in the armed clash.
The inquiry of the German daily puts in argument the "OSCE reports and
the statements given by the American president Bill Clinton", who spoke
about "innocent men, women and children who were forced to kneel down
in the mud i order to be shot dead". Nevertheless, in 39 out of 40
cases, the results of the
autopsies refute the thesis of the mass murder, stresses Il Manifesto.
However, the mystery remains on the real number of the victims,
especially on the bodies of the combatants of the terrorist KLA, whose
bodies were mainly removed from Racak in the meantime in order not to
discredit the thesis of the slaughter of unarmed civilians. That is why
there is no trace of the presence of KLA terrorists among the dead men
neither in the OSCE report, nor in the "special report" for internal
use, disclosed a couple of days after the bodies had been found.
Il Manifesto reveals another important data: at least 13 out of 45
buried bodies have disappeared from the "cemetery of the martyrs" in
Racak.
1. Ranta on Racak: No interest on Serb victims;
ICTY indictment based on the Walker's statement with no
legal value
2. Serbs also killed in Racak “massacre” says investigator
3. AFP, Reuters, April-June 2002:
Milosevic Says Kosovo Massacre Staged by Rebels.
Milosevic Says Racak Was a Battle, Not a Massacre.
Milosevic denouncs Racak massacre as set-up.
Milosevic and Walker clash in court over Racak massacre.
4. "il Manifesto": OSCE LIED ABOUT RACAK (April 9, 2000)
SEE ALSO:
The facts behind the "massacre"
in the village of Racak in Kosovo
THE RACAK FILE: TRUTHS AND MANIPULATION
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/ddj/Racak/Tiker/RacakFile.html
Massacre Or Not? (by Stephen Gowans, May 6, 2002)
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans30.html
=== 1 ===
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Mar 20 Gen 2004 13:03:07 Europe/Rome
A: Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] ICTY indictment on Racak has no legal value
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Mar 20 Gen 2004 12:31:36 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Ranta: ICTY indictment based on the Walker's statement with no
legal value
No interest on Serb victims
Markus Bickel, Berliner Zeitung, January 17, 2004
Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta said the work of the Hague tribunal
regarding the so-called Racak massacre was incomprehensible. The former
head of the forensic team the European Union sent to the
Kosovo-Albanian village of Racak in January 1999 to investigate the
events there, in a conversation with Berliner Zeitung, criticized the
UN tribunal for not following up the evidence that there was heavy
fighting between Serb soldiers and the Kosovo-Albanian fighters during
the night of January 15-16, 1999 in the Racak-region.
Western politicians used the tragedy in the village of Racak, where 40
Albanians died exactely 5 years ago, to prove to the public that the
upcoming NATO attack on Yugoslavia was necessary.
US diplomat William Walker played the leading role. The chief of the
OSCE mission in Kosovo immediately accused the Serbs of having killed
45 unarmed Albanian civilians at close range in Racak. The Serbian side
rejected this interpretation und spoke instead about KLA soldiers
killed in battle.
Pictures not published
She knew, that at that time "KLA-fighters were buried around Racak,"
said Ranta. "At that time I received information that proved that
several Serb soldiers had been killed as well. Unfortunately, we will
never know the exact number of Serb soldiers that died that night." It
would be appropriate "to ask the tribunal why they are not interested
in that number."
Ranta criticized the indictment against former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic in the case of Racak for mostly following the Walker
version. "When Ambassador Walker said that there was a massacre at
Racak, this statement had no legal value. I declared at that time that
the OSCE-observers forgot to take all steps necessary to secure a crime
scene: isolating the area, refusing admission to all unauthorized
persons and colletinig all material evidence.
Ranta demanded that in addition to the OSCE pictures the tribunal also
use the pictures taken by two additional photographers, shot several
hours prior to the arrival of OCSE-observers.
The pictures show "that at least one of the bodies was moved afterwards
..." that body is not seen on OSCE-pictures."
Left in the lurch
In the days prior to the NATO-attack on Yugoslavia it was clear "that a
bunch of governments were interested in a version of Racak that blamed
only the Serb side," said Ranta. "But I could not provide this
version." Her instructions came from the German diplomat Pauls. The
representative of the then-German EU-presidency asked for a written
statement.
"Afterwards, I had to show these personal statements to William Walker,
who was obviously not amused when he read it." Still, she agreed to
take part in the important press conference on March 17, 1999. "At that
(conference), I was sitting with the German ambassador to Belgrade,
Gruber, and a Finnish diplomat on the podium. I hoped that those
gentlemen would support me." But that was not the case. "I rather had
the feeling that I was left in the lurch," said Ranta.
As a result of the Walker dominated press-conference most of the media
accepted the version of a Serb massacre of Albanian civilians as proven.
A few days later the NATO-air attacks on Yugoslavia began.
(Translated from German by C.Schuetz & J.Catalinotto)
---
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
=== 2 ===
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=26508&order=priority&style=headlines
B92 - January 19, 2004
Serbs also killed in Racak “massacre” says
investigator
BELGRADE -- Monday – Five years after the alleged
massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak which
eventually led to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,
Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta, who led forensic
investigations into the case, has said for the first
time that Serb security troops were also killed.
Ranta told B92 today that she had received information
about the death of Serb troops in Racak in 1999.
“I was told there victims of both Serbian forces and
the Kosovo Liberation Army murdered in Racak on
Friday, January 15, 1999. I didn’t see the list of
Serb victims. I was shown only a list of victims from
the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army, she said.
Asked why, of 45 bodies transferred from Racak to a
nearby mosque, only forty were eventually delivered to
the Pristina Forensic Institute, Ranta said she had
did not know.
She also questioned why photographs taken before the
arrival of international monitors had not been
published. Instead, only those taken by OSCE monitors
had appeared in public.
=== 3 ===
Reuters. 15 April 2002.
Milosevic Says Kosovo Massacre Staged by Rebels.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic at his trial on Monday accused
separatist Kosovo Albanian guerrillas of fabricating an alleged
atrocity by Serb forces in 1999 in a bid to spur a shocked West into
attacking Yugoslavia.
The killing of about 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak in January 1999
shocked the outside world and was widely credited with stiffening
NATO's resolve to launch its 11-week campaign of air strikes against
Yugoslavia two months later.
The Hague tribunal heard last week from a Western observer that dozens
of unarmed men dressed in slippers and rubber boots were found shot in
the head at Racak in 1999 after Serb forces entered the village.
Milosevic disputed the testimony.
Milosevic told the war crimes court that ethnic Albanian Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas shifted corpses around Racak to an
open mass grave as part of a ruse to convince Western observers that
Serb forces had butchered villagers. He said Serb forces had only
killed KLA guerrillas in gun battles.
"It may be, as Serb authorities claim, and many Europeans tended to
believe, that the victims were in fact killed in the shoot-out reported
by police and then aligned to give the appearance of a massacre,"
Milosevic said quoting from an Italian press report.
The 60-year-old accused, who is conducting his own defense at the
United Nations court against charges he has rejected as "false,"
vigorously challenged testimony that Racak's villagers had been gunned
down.
Retired British general Karel Drewienkiewicz acknowledged that a fierce
battle had taken place between KLA guerrillas and Serb forces at Racak
and that there had been a "lapse" of some 15 hours overnight before
Western observers viewed the scene.
Last week Drewienkiewicz told the court he saw men shot in the head at
Racak. They had been dressed in carpet slippers and rubber boots.
Since his trial opened in February Milosevic has accuses the West and
Islamic militant group al-Qaeda of supporting a "terrorist" campaign by
the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army to destabilize the Balkans.
---
Reuters. 13 May 2002
Milosevic Says Racak Was a Battle, Not a Massacre.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic sought to show judges at his war crimes
trial Monday that a 1999 Serb attack in Kosovo was not a civilian
massacre but a legitimate battle with armed rebels.
The former Yugoslav leader, who is conducting his own defense, used
news clips and documents in a bid to show that journalists and
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors
were in and around the village of Racak as Yugoslav police entered in
January 1999.
"Is it possible the police called in the journalists and the OSCE as
they were carrying out a massacre?" Milosevic asked Karel
Drewienkiewicz in two hours of tetchy cross-examination about the
alleged Racak massacre.
Milosevic, on trial since February, insisted the sound be turned up on
footage of Racak, saying artillery pounding and ripples of gunfire in
the background were evidence of fighting.
Milosevic, who leaned back in his chair for much of the session and
gestured with his spectacles, frequently made reference to the NATO
bombings and cited journalists who had speculated that the Racak
Albanians had been killed in battle.
Each time he was reeled in by presiding Judge Richard May, reminded of
time constraints and urged to focus on the witness.
---
AFP. 22 May 2002
Milosevic denouncs Racak massacre as set-up.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday again denounced as fake
the 1999 massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak, saying Albanian
separatists staged the event that was a catalyst for NATO's 11-week
bombing campaign.
In cross-examining French medical expert Eric Baccard, Milosevic
challenged allegations that the 45 ethnic Albanian men recovered in the
central Kosovo village were slain in a cold-blooded murder.
"Have you heard of the altogether credible assumption that the corpses
had been moved and taken from several other places to the site at which
they were found?" Milosevic asked.
The Serb authorities have always maintained that the bodies found by
international observers on a hill near Racak in January 1999 were the
corpses of fighters for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), killed during
a gun battle with Serb forces and moved deliberately to the site by the
Kosovo Albanians to suggest a mass killing.
Baccard, the tribunal's chief pathologist in Kosovo, told Milosevic
that his work was based on autopsies and did not take into account the
hypothesis of outside tampering with the corpses.
---
AFP. 12 June 2002
Milosevic and Walker clash in court over Racak massacre.
THE HAGUE -- Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and US
observer William Walker who led the international verification mission
(KVM) during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo, clashed in court Wednesday
over their opposing explanations for the massacre in Racak.
Walker said Milosevic's claim that the killings in Racak were staged by
rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "ludicrous."
The former Yugoslav president has repeatedly said during his trial that
the 45 Albanian men found dead in Racak on January 15th, 1999, were in
fact KLA fighters killed in regular battle dressed up to look like
civilians with the intention of implicated the Serb forces in a
massacre.
Walker, a former US ambassador, headed the KVM sent by the Organisation
for Cooperation and Security in Europe to monitor a cease fire agreed
on by Milosevic and US envoy Richard Holbrooke in October 1998.
During his cross examination of the witness, Milosevic showed several
photographs of bodies found in Racak where no bloodstains appeared to
be visible on the ground.
The former president, who is representing himself, also showed two
pictures apparently of the same corpse, one showing blood and the other
without blood stains.
"This scene has been staged or rigged," Milosevic charged.
=== 4 ===
Italian newspaper "il Manifesto":
OSCE LIED ABOUT RACAK
Rome, April 09, 2000: "There was no massacre in Racak", says today the
Italian daily Il Manifesto, citing the results of the inquiry recently
launched by the German daily Berliner Zeitung. "The evidence clearly
show what really happened: there was no mass murder in Racak". "Those
were probably the bodies of the KLA terrorists who had died on January
15th".
This had happened "only a day before William Walker, head of the
verifiers of the OSCE screamed about the slaughter of the civilians,
pointing his finger at the Yugoslav Army", reminds Tiziana Boari, Il
Manifesto journalist.
The confirmation about the non-existence of the massacre in Racak comes
from the report of the Finnish pathologists on autopsy. This report
exists for more than a year, but was deliberately hidden from the
public. However, it suddenly
reached the editorial offices of the German daily, Il Manifesto
explains.
"It is obvious that the victims were not killed at close range",
confirmed professor Klaus Pueschel, director of the Medical institute
of the Hamburg University, who has examined the protocols of the
autopsies carried out by the Finnish doctors, upon the request of the
Berliner daily paper. Pueschel also
confirmed that the Finnish doctors had not applied the method of the
paraffin glove, which would have proven for sure the number of the
victims who participated in the armed clash.
The inquiry of the German daily puts in argument the "OSCE reports and
the statements given by the American president Bill Clinton", who spoke
about "innocent men, women and children who were forced to kneel down
in the mud i order to be shot dead". Nevertheless, in 39 out of 40
cases, the results of the
autopsies refute the thesis of the mass murder, stresses Il Manifesto.
However, the mystery remains on the real number of the victims,
especially on the bodies of the combatants of the terrorist KLA, whose
bodies were mainly removed from Racak in the meantime in order not to
discredit the thesis of the slaughter of unarmed civilians. That is why
there is no trace of the presence of KLA terrorists among the dead men
neither in the OSCE report, nor in the "special report" for internal
use, disclosed a couple of days after the bodies had been found.
Il Manifesto reveals another important data: at least 13 out of 45
buried bodies have disappeared from the "cemetery of the martyrs" in
Racak.