The witness whose testimony could be valuable in solving war crimes from the 90s lives in Djakovica / Gjakove. He decided to entrust the secret to his former Serbian neighbors because he is very old and wants to tell the truth. The witness is willing to cooperate, but insisted on anonymity. He also refused to have contact with Kosovo authorities, because he fears for the safety of his family.
“I have information about the location in Djakovica, which I got from one Albanian who hid the bodies and buried them. He found the bodies after the expulsion of Serbs from Djakovica in mid-June 1999, and he found them in a state of decay. He could not say exactly how many bodies he found. The authenticity of his story is confirmed by the fact that he recognized one body. He knew exactly who he was,” told Milenko Jovanovic, president of the Association of displaced persons from Kosovo.
Jovanovic points out that the witness is “an honorable man, and the person whom Serbs from Djakovica know.” “That man was not involved in the liquidation, but he found the bodies on the meadow. He decided to bury remains so that one day families would found and take them. He believes it is a time for that because only he knows the secret, and he is very old. Apart from us, he didn’t speak with anybody about it. We expect that international factors and the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia will contact us, in order to establish cooperation bearing in mind the safest possible treatment of the witnesses,” says Jovanovic.
He points out that as firstly they intend to inform Veljko Odalovic, President of the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia. “We don’t have confidence in Pristina institutions and will never tell them about any location. In particular, we will not tell the names of people who are our source of information. I invite UNMIK, EULEX, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the institutions of Serbia and Montenegro to contact us. Our only requirement is that in the commissions there are no Albanians, because we want to protect our source,” says Jovanovic.
