The authorities will investigate the suspected mass grave near the town of Djakovica in Kosovo where Serbs killed by guerrillas during the late 1990s war could be buried.

The Serbian war crimes prosecution and the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, have information that Serbs killed by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters at a detention camp in Likovc/Likovac during the war could be buried in the suspected mass grave, the prosecution said on Monday.

“The Serbian war crimes prosecution in cooperation with the war crimes investigation unit of the EULEX prosecution have information about the location of a potential mass grave in the village of Piskota in the municipality of Djakovica, where the remains of Serb civilians who died during the armed conflict in Kosovo from 1998-99 were buried,” the prosecution said in a statement.

The statement said that EULEX prosecutors have ordered an exhumation, autopsies and the identification of possible human remains at the site.

Crimes against prisoners held at the Likovc/Likovac detention camp form part of the indictment in the ongoing trial of several senior Kosovo Liberation Army ex-officials, including Sylejman Selimi, Pristina’s former ambassador to Tirana and security forces commander, and Sami Lushtaku, the mayor of the Kosovo town of Skenderaj/Srbica.

However the former guerrillas, known as the Drenica Group, are only accused of crimes against Kosovo Albanian prisoners. They have denied the charges.

Previously Selimi and three other KLA fighters were acquitted in another case related to the abuse in the Likovc/Likovac camp.