British team suspends Kosovo investigation after exhuming 508 bodies November 18, 1999 Web posted at: 11:35 a.m. EST (1635 GMT) LONDON (AP) -- British war crimes investigators said Thursday they have suspended work in Kosovo for the winter after uncovering 508 bodies, most of them elderly Albanian men who had been shot in the head. British investigators are among 14 forensic teams that have exhumed bodies at 195 gravesites in Kosovo since the end of the 78-day NATO bombing campaign. Evidence is to be turned over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia, which already has indicted five Serbians, including President Slobodan Milosevic. In one exhumation in Velika Krusa, the British team found about 40 men who had been shot in a barn and burned under a pile of hay. But the exact death toll will never be known, said John Bunn, head of Scotland Yard's forensic team, who recently returned from Kosovo. "It's just a mess. It's unidentifiable," Bunn said. "All you can do is try to retrieve bones and match the bones up." Last week, the United Nations said teams had exhumed 2,108 bodies so far. Intelligence reports and witnesses had indicated they should have found 4,266 bodies. Despite speculation that the final death toll may be lower than NATO's initial estimate of 10,000, British officials said it could even be higher. "We stand by at least 10,000," said Catherine Nettleson, Britain's war crimes coordinator. Recovery has appeared slow because most of the dead have been exhumed from smaller burial sites, unlike the mass graves of 200 or more bodies discovered after the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, Nettleton said. Many of the dead also have been disposed of in rivers, buried in existing graveyards or destroyed beyond recognition, making a count difficult, she added. Of the bodies exhumed by the British team, there were 260 males, 29 females, 20 children and 199 that could not be categorized. Most died from multiple gunshot wounds. The British team is expected to resume its work in April, once the ground in Kosovo has thawed. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. И едно допълнение към същата информация, взето от BBC: Some 508 bodies have been recovered, all of them civilians, and virtually all shot at close range. (!!!!!!) British officials say the true number of bodies in the grave sites investigated could well be higher - these are conservative figures - but the gruesome state of the human remains makes investigation difficult. All the evidence, say the investigators, points to these people having been deliberately shot. (!!!!!!) Някой тук разсъждаваше че това били жертви на бойни действия, бомбардировки на НАТО и т.н. правно-пропагандаторски упражнения.