"Politika" exclusively finds out: the authorized team of the Finish pathologists confirmed in their official report that in the Kosmet village of Racak, on the last 15th January, the massacre had not been committed and, therefore, there is no possibility to use this incident as an excuse for the military threat to Yugoslavia.

According to that what "Politika" learns from reliable sources, in the report of the Finish specialists of medical jurisprudence there are even more details which indict the Albanian side than there were in already reported findings of our and Belarusian pathologists. In addition to other methods, the Finish pathologists determined by a special analysis "paraffin glove" that all killed had previously shot from firearms. They also found out that their corpses were brought from some other place later on. In this way once more, and hopefully finally, the accusations of William Walker, Chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo and Metohija, that the Serbian police committed the massacre of gathered helpless civilians was rejected as untrue.

The French newspapers "Mond" and "Liberation" first - after the Yugoslav competent authorities - challenged the Walker's version about the occurrence in the village of Racak. Now, a neutral group of experts confirmed that they were right. The statement about the massacre at Racak is a lie, an attempt of manipulation aimed at putting the blame on the Serbian police and people, wrote the mentioned French newspapers stating that corpses of killed Albanians were removed and put in a certain position to look like massacred.

So, the court experts gave their unique judgement that refutes the claim of Walker from its bottom and thus one of the most mentioned reasons for the foreign military intervention as well. Possibly therefore the report of the Finish pathologists was kept secret even when it was completed.

Obviously, it was in someone's interest not to hurry with the report which does not fit into the assumption of the chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosmet, William Walker, and to keep the Serbian side "under the pressure" as long as possible, that is to spare the Albanian side from the guilt for manipulation. According to the available information, the responsibility could be ascribed primarily to Germany, which as the presiding country of the European Union got the report of the Finish pathologists but still keep it in secret.

The real occurrences in the village of Racak and manipulations about what could be produced from the Walker's falsification of facts can be seen in the text of the "Berliner Zeitung" of 10th March this year:

"Racak. The name of that village in Kosovo went around the world at the beginning of this year. On the sixteenth of January, the OESC observers found bodies of 45 Albanians in the village of Racak. One woman and one child were among them. Cameras documented the scene: William Walker, Chief of the Mission, together with his people trudge on the cut road. At every several meters one body on the ground. Obviously touched Walker looks at corpses and tries to say something. After a while, Walker said what he thought about what he had seen. Regular Serbian army units killed Albanian civilians. As the matter was not in the slightest so clear neither to other representatives of the OESC nor to the representatives of the EU and UN, EU authorized the Finish pathologists to examine the dead bodies. However, even the very arrival of the team in Kosovo almost was not noticed.

The pictures of Racak, as we remember, became the beginning of till then the most serious intensification of the Kosovo crisis. NATO urged to start with air strikes on Serbian positions. Europe was very close to the new Balkans war. Only on 4th February, under the pressure of Belgrade, NATO accepted the conference on Kosovo, which is now, after the three-week break, continued.

In spite of its importance, explanation of the incident at Racak, which could not be challenged, does not exist yet. The basic question is whether 45 Albanians were killed in fights between the Serbian police forces and OVK or were massacred by Serbs. Indeed, the Serbian and Belarusian pathologists excluded the massacre already several weeks ago, but such an examination could be colored by interest. Therefore, it would be more important to determine which results the team of the Finish experts got since it included the internationally recognized expert Helene Ranta, engaged by the UN order.

But, although this expert analysis was finished already at the beginning of March, EU was slow in its publishing challenging the procedural matters for several times. On the last Thursday Ranta confirmed to our journalists that "the work on the report has essentially been completed" and that only few technical details should be finished. She also stated that the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs had undertaken the responsibility for whether the report would be published or not. As the date for submitting the report to German representatives in the EU Council, Ranta stated 8th March, although 5th March had already been announced as the previous deadline. One spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bon cited the formulation that only upon the submission of the report "the further procedure will be thought up as well as the date of the report publishing".

Anyhow, the submission of the report was announced for 8th March. After that dates the German body which presides the EU Council should undertake further consideration of that matter. But the term was postponed to great surprise. Quite opposite to the statements of Helene Ranta, who, one week earlier, considered that only three days were required for additional work on the report, Taria Halonen, from the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the expertise on Racak, due to few still unclear "technical details" must stay with pathologists for one week more. After this statement Helene Ranta did not like to promise any date. She only shortly directed to those who passes decisions in Bon.

Only after additional investigation in Helsinki and Bon, as well as under the OESC pressures, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bon announced on Tuesday that the report on Racak would be made public on 17th March. We have to wait in order to see whether it would really happen. However, two days before the deadline, the second round of negotiations about Kosovo should start in Paris. After political replacements in previous days the expertise, whose essence Joscha Fischer, President of the EU Security Council already knows, would lead to a clear result. Then, there will be only two possibilities. Either the pathological report will confirm that there was a massacre or Serbs will be acquitted from guilt since their version that 45 Albanians were killed in fights and that the scene of the massacre was later on arranged will be confirmed. Each of these alternatives will have a great impact on continuation of negotiations on Kosovo. But, such an incident with serious political consequences, as Racak is, requires unconditional and public explanation."

We hope that the Finish report explained the matter from the neutral side. On this occasion we would like to remind to the detail description of the incident given by the Yugoslav official authorities already two months ago:

" On the day of 15th January 1999, in the early morning hours, member of the Police blocked the village of Racak, Stimlje Municipality intending to seize a terrorist group.

Five days prior to this action, the terrorist group killed the policeman Svetislav Przic in the village of Racak. This group committed a number of criminal acts of terrorism from the Criminal Statute, Article 125, killing the policemen Mihajlovic Sinisa, Aluri Nazmi and Przic Svetislav, members of the reserve police unit of the SUP Urosevac, Police Station Stimlje (killed in attacks on 10th September, 29th October and 10th January 1999), Jankovic Sasa and Djordjevic Ranko, members of the police reserve unit of SUP Gnjilane (killed on 2nd August and 12th October 1998) and civilians Resani Miftar (31st December 1998) and Gasi Enver 2nd January 1999). In the territory of Urosevac and Stimlje Municipalities, this terrorist group committed kidnapping of members of the Albanian national community and Gypsy ethnical group and fired the house of Albanian Bitici Djemalj from Racak village (18th November 1998). At the entrances to the village of Racak, terrorist groups from trenches, bunkers and fortifications attacked members of the police from automatic firearms, bazookas and mortars. On that occasion the policeman Goran Vucicevic was wounded, while a number of official vehicles of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia were damaged. Members of the Police Force, in order to repulse the attack, used firearms and broke the terrorist group. In these fights several tenth of terrorists were killed. Majority of them wore uniforms with marks of the terrorist OVK.

On that occasion, members of the police seized one heavy machine gun of "Browing" mark, cal. 12.7 mm, two automatic rifles, 36 automatic guns, two snipers, and a large amount of ammunition and hand grenades, radio stations and other military equipment and appliances.

In the course of this police action, the terrorist Mujota Sadik (1943) from Malopoljce village, Stimlje Municipality, and his daughter who was actively participating in the terrorist organization, the so-called OVK, were killed. Mujota with his brothers, three sons and a daughter lead a terrorist group consisting of a certain number of persons, which took part in committing numerous terrorist attacks on members of the Ministry of Interior and the Yugoslav Army in the territory of Stimlje Municipality.

The OESC KVM was informed about the beginning of the action for arresting terrorists and was present at the spot.

Immediately after the police action, at the spot arrived an investigation team headed by the investigative judge of the District Court in Pristina, Danica Marinkovic, and the deputy of the District Public Prosecutor Ismet Sufta, but the terrorists being on surrounding heights opened fire and prevented further investigation conducting.

The next day, on 16th January 1999, conducting of the investigation was prevented again, as OESC KVM insisted that the investigative judge conduct the investigation without the presence of the police, explaining that the conflict could arise again. On the occasion of undertaking this (classic) police action for finding and arresting of a terrorist group for committed terrorist attacks, killing and kidnapping of members of the police and inhabitants in the area of Urosevac and Stimlje, the Chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo and Metohija, Mr. William Walker, immediately charged "the Yugoslav Police forces" for the massacre of 45 civilians in the village of Racak, what he "convinced himself". He also sent an ultimate request for the arrival of the prosecutor of the Tribunal in Hague in Kosovo and Metohija within the next 24 hours. On the press conference he said that inhabitants of Racak led him to the hill where he saw bodies of twenty killed civilians (who "obviously lied in the place where they had been killed" and that" nobody of killed persons did not wear uniforms, that all of them were in civilian clothes as modest inhabitants of an Albanian village"). He stated that Verification Mission members counted 36 killed persons while American Mission members found out that 45 persons were killed.

Mr. William Walker proclaimed that this event was a conflict with civilians neglecting the fact that they were armed with weapons, which the police collected, and engaged in the attack on the police. He also neglected the indisputable fact that the police was attacked, provoked and forced to defend with arms from armed terrorist attacks. His statement - given to the representatives of the authorities in Kosovo and Metohija who later on informed him about the real facts - "that the world will believe to him" but not to arguments and facts found out in the legal procedure conducted by the competent authorities of our country, is really astonishing.

At the same time Mister William Walker by himself without informing the Yugoslav authorities, visited the village of Racak together with journalists he personally chose. Thus he demonstrated his obvious intention to have the monopoly in interpreting the event and prejudiced finding out of the real facts that the Yugoslav authorities are sovereign in each part of their state territory and the only body authorized to find out the facts in a legal procedure and in the presence of KVM, as well as, to publicize the truth. By his behavior, untrue and malicious interpretations, disregard of the legally competent Yugoslav authorities and laws, Mr. Walker most severely violated hiss mandate of a verificator and the Agreement with OESC.

On the day of 17th January 1999, the head of the Federal Government Coordination Team of the Committee for Cooperation with the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo and Metohija, Mr. Dusan Loncar, send a protest note to the Chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo and Metohija, Mr. William Walker, because of his inadequate behavior and particularly because he prevented the investigation procedure in the village of Racak by the legally competent authorities. Conducting of the investigation scheduled for 17th January 1999 in the period from 8.00 to 13.00, with invitation to Walker (KVM) to verify the procedure of the investigation conducting, did not even begin due to the action of Albanian terrorists with mortars and heavy machine guns from the area of Rance and Petrovo villages. On that occasion, one of the fired mines fell near the investigative judge Mrs. Danica Marinkovic, while mines fired by terrorists directly endangered lives of policemen from the security team of the investigative judge.

Mr. Walker was filed an official protest for preventing the investigation conducted by the investigative judge. It was requested that verificators be engaged only in the function of the verification and operation procedure of our investigative judge and her security.

After the agreement was reached between the President of the SR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and the special American representative the Ambassador Holbrooke, in the period from 13th October 1998 to 14th January 1999, in the territory of AP Kosovo and Metohija, Albanian separatists committed 5999 terrorist attacks and provocations all together, whereof 186 on civilians and 413 on members of the Police Force of the Republic of Serbia. In these attacks 53 persons were killed all together (35 civilians and 16 policemen), 36 persons got heavy physical wounds (13 civilians and 23 policemen), while 76 persons had slight wounds (38 civilians and 38 policemen). Altogether 43 persons were kidnapped (39 civilians and 4 policemen) out of which three persons were killed (one civilian and two policemen), while nothing is still known about 22 civilians and one policeman.

The investigative judge Mrs. Danica Marinkovic visited the place of the incident, continued the investigation and collected evidences about the factual state. Within this frame, the Yugoslav experts for forensic medicine again invited the Finish experts for forensic medicine to continue the cooperation in identification of corpses and finding out the reason of death."