A German journalist admitted yesterday that bodies buried in a mass grave at the Kosovan town of Racak during the Balkan wars had been "rearranged in order to photograph them better".
Franz-Josef Hutsch, testifying during the defence of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav President, at his trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, said that he went to Racak in January 1999 with an official involved in ceasefire monitoring. He said that they had discovered the bodies in a gully. Mr Milosevic has said that the crackdown on Albanians was a legitimate war against Kosovo Liberation Army Islamic extremists, that Racak was a KLA stronghold and that those killed were fighters not civilians. He argued during the prosecution case that the scene had been tampered with. Mr Hutsch said it was clear that the 45 people who had been killed were not potential KLA recruits: two thirds of the victims were men over 50. The trial, which has resumed after a month to give the defence time to prepare its case, continues. |