THE (AB)USE OF FORENSIC MEDICINE

Professor Dusan Dunjic
Institute for Forensic Medicine

The effort to ensure convincing evidence regarding many deaths caused by human rights violations entails adequate and reliable documentation. Due to the lack of appropriate forensic documents, many cases of human rights violations have remained unsolved, and the perpetrators of the crimes have not been brought to justice. Suffice it to mention the genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Roma in the concentration camp of Jasenovac and other camps throughout the fascist Independent State of Croatia, during the II World War.

The international community’s adoption of a “protocol” is only the first step in ensuring the objective presentation of the results of expertises. However, it is also important to note how such an adopted document is applied in other countries and by domestic experts. Indeed, if it is applied as such, why are the obtained results not adequately validated by the international community?

An evident example of double standards in the presentation and acceptance of results of such expertises, using the standard and internationally accepted protocol, can be seen on the basis of the most recent events in Kosovo and Metohija, following the discovery of a large number of victims on the Glodjane and Racak sites.

In the first case (Glodjane), an expertise was carried out on the victims of ethnic Albanian separatism, who were caught by terrorists of the KLA, tortured and murdered on the territory of the village of Glodjane near Decani, in the period from April to the end of August 1998. Most of them were Serbs of various ages (the majority older than 50 years), of both sexes, several were Catholic Albanians and some were Albanians loyal to the Yugoslav state in which they live, and two were Roma.

Following the discovery of the site of the mass crime, near the village of Glodjane, a team of medical experts from the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade started work on the very spot where the bodies were discovered. The entire procedure was conducted according to the Republic of Serbia’s Criminal Law and Law on Criminal Procedure, under the immediate supervision of the Investigating Judge of the District Court in Pec (which has jurisdiction over this area). All the work was public and on several occasions, reporters from numerous foreign and domestic radio and TV broadcasting stations visited the expert team, as did the OSCE representatives who were present in Kosovo and Metohija at that time (representatives of the USA, Germany, Russia, Greece, Great Britain), as well as many Yugoslav experts. All the details of the investigation were shown to these representatives, Neither then, nor later, did they have any objections regarding the work of the team.

The results of the investigation unquestionably indicated that at least 40 persons had been killed on this site. The majority of the bodies had wounds inflicted by firearms and injuries from blunt, mechanical objects. The forensic identification in a number of cases was difficult owing to progressive decay, but despite this 12 persons were identified.

The expertise revealed the great importance and role of forensic medicine in the timely verification of crimes against humanity, bearing many features of the crime of genocide for national and/or religious motives, as demonstrated by the perpetrators of these acts: the terrorist organisation of Kosmet Albanians, otherwise known as the “KLA”.

Finally, all the results of the expertise were presented to the Yugoslav public and to foreign experts (the expert team from Finland as the EU representatives for Kosovo and Metohija, and the experts from Belarus. So far, there have been no objections to the expert team’s work but the international community (primarily the EU) did not raise its voice to condemn this evident crime against our people, both in terms of international standards and according to Yugoslav law.

Throughout its work in the field and during the expertise in Djakovica, the team was under the continual protection of the police, so as to be free to do its work. The reason for armed police protection lay in the fact that the terrorist organisation of the Kosmet Albanians, the so-called “KLA”, was constantly carrying out individual attacks against smaller groups of civilians, members of the police and the army. A large number of people were killed or seriously injured in these attacks, in the meantime. In the majority of cases, forensic specialists from Pristina immediately performed autopsies on the victims, and in three cases they were joined by a forensic team from Belgrade.

As circumstances underwent a significant change and the terrorist attacks intensified (at the end of October, in November and December 1998), the number of murdered and missing people increased. Thus, the victims from Glodjane were forgotten, as were more than 200 persons (most of them Serbs and loyal Albanians, Catholic Albanians and Roma) who went missing on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija during 1998.

The case of the village of Racak was the logical outcome of the individual and sum total of the preceding mass killings of civilians and the members of the Republic of Serbia’s law enforcement bodies, committed by the terrorist organisation of Kosmet Albanians known as the “KLA”, and as a result of the double standards of the international community in “validating the victims”.

If one leaves aside the reasons for which the Racak case was constructed, we observe a situation in which an attempt was made to manipulate the forensic specialists who were supposed to provide evidence of a massacre or to refute such claims. In order to ensure an objective presentation of the victims from Racak, the Yugoslav government received experts from Finland, who were to join the expert team from Yugoslavia (consisting of the foremost forensic experts in our country) and two independent experts from Belarus.

Autopsies were performed on the Racak victims in Pristina, and this is the first time, as far as we know, that an expertise was conducted simultaneously by expert teams from three countries. The professional part of the work was conducted in such a way that the Yugoslav pathologists performed the autopsies, while the other two teams had their own observers who made out reports independently, each for their own teams. At the end of each autopsy, the teams agreed on their conclusions. At the same time, a video recording was made of the entire procedure. In this way, the conclusions were in accord: on the cause of death; the conclusion referring to the means with which wounds were inflicted; whether all the injuries were inflicted while the victims were alive, and whether any were inflicted after death (and, if so, what had caused them); whether there were traces of gun powder explosion around the wounds on the bodies (distance).

In the course of our work, the Finnish team was in direct contact with the OSCE and EU verifiers. However, towards the end of our work, it was announced that William Walker (the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission) refused to acknowledge the professional standards of the work of the Finnish team, and only recognised those of the Hague Tribunal investigators. Of course, this did not influence our work and we all completed the autopsies together. Cooperation among the members of all three teams was excellent. The expert team from Finland (headed by Dr.Helen Ranta, a forensic stomatologist) wished to remain consistent in its standards and decided to publish the results of its examinations after all the analyses were finished. One should emphasise that this procedure is in full accordance with professional rules. It should be added that directly before beginning the expertise, the Yugoslav pathologists took samples from the hands on all the bodies, to find out whether there were traces of gun powder explosion on them. Criminological technicians confirmed the presence of traces of gun powder explosion on the hands of 37 out of the 40 examined bodies. The discovery of traces of gun powder explosion indicates that directly before death, these people had handled firearms.

As soon as the autopsies were completed and agreement was reached on the conclusion after each autopsy, in keeping with the Yugoslav law, the expert teams from Yugoslavia and Belarus sent their conclusions in a written report to the Investigating Judge. Thus, after the autopsies were done, the Investigating Judge of the Pristina District Court, Danica Marinkovic, received our findings and conclusions for each individual case. With this, our function as forensic specialists was completed.

Was there a massacre in the village of Racak, or not? A valid reply to this crucial question could only come from the investigating bodies and on the basis of the forensic experts’ findings. Indeed, on the basis of the completed autopsies and additional tests that were conducted, we established the following facts:

• all the dead had sustained wounds exclusively from firearms (one, two or more);
• the bodies bore no traces of other injuries (from blunt or sharp objects and suchlike);
• except in two cases where doubt was expressed about the presence of gun powder explosion (which was tested), all the other wounds did not bear traces of gun powder explosion, which undoubtedly leads to the conclusion that they were all inflicted from a distance;
• all the wounds had occurred before death, except in six cases where traces of the activity of large and small animals on the bodies, occurring after death, were discovered;
• the wounds were localised in different parts and sides of the bodies and had been inflicted from different directions;
• the wounds on the bodies were acompanied by corresponding damage to the clothing on the bodies, which indicates that the clothing on the bodies had not been changed;
• the bodies were clothed in different kinds of civilian clothing, but it is characteristic that they all had two or three pairs of trousers on them, and several pairs of socks (if they had been sitting indoors why had they been wearing so much clothing, unless they had spent a long period outdoors); about ten of them were found to be wearing identical long, dark grey, military underpants, black, rubber military boots of foreign make; money, knives and other items. A number of the younger persons (aged between 18 and 25 years) were wearing identical black trousers and short, black leather jackets. (Later we received information that they were members of the terrorist organisation’s “special police” and that this was their “uniform”.)

Therefore, all these facts led the investigating bodies to conclude that this concrete case did not involve a “massacre” in the village of Racak, but a legitimate battle of the authorities against terrorists (and what are armed civilians if not terrorists?).

On March 17th 1999, the head of the expert team from Finland, submitted the report on the results of their expertise, in Pristina. The results of their team were almost in every respect identical to our findings and conclusions. However, in a separate report made out for the press conference in the OSCE (KVM) mission in Pristina, the head of the Finnish team literally wrote the following:

“These comments are based on the medical examinations conducted by the EU team of pathologists …The comments represent the personal views of the author, Dr. Helen Ranta, and should not be interpreted in any way as the authorised communication of the Department for Forensic Medicine of the University of Helsinki, or the EU expert team of pathologists…”

In her comments, Helen Ranta also concluded the following: “…There were no indications that these people had been anything else but unarmed civilians…”

The events in Racak were described as a “massacre”.

However, this conclusion does not fall within the competence of the EU team of pathologists or any other persons who took part individually in the examination of the bodies. The term “massacre” cannot be based only on medical evidence…it is more appropriate for criminal investigators to use this term, in order to initiate legal procedure…

Without going into the “personal comments” of the forensic stomatologist, these two examples clearly demonstrate the place, importance and role of forensic medicine in ascertaining material evidence regarding human rights violations, indicate the double standards applied in the evaluation of our findings, and also point to the enormous responsibility of doctors in giving their “personal comments” and, the tragic consequences which the prejudiced (William Walker) elaboration of incorrect conclusions by politicians can have.