/ADVANCE/ ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Serbian security forces incinerated the remains of hundreds of ethnic Albanians in an industrial furnace during the 1999 war in Kosovo, according to a new investigative documentary by American RadioWorks(SM) (ARW), the documentary project of Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News. The secret operation was part of a highly organized effort by Serbia's leadership to conceal evidence of possible war crimes from international investigators.

Burning the Evidence, a 20-minute documentary, airs Thursday, January 25, on National Public Radio's All Things Considered(R).

Members of the Serbian police, army and intelligence services said they took part in an effort to hide war crimes evidence by digging up corpses from mass graves and burning them in the furnace of a lead refinery in northern Kosovo. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the operation was coordinated by an elite unit of the Serbian security service, under orders from close associates of former leader Slobodan Milosevic.

"The point was not to hide the bodies in graves but to totally destroy them. It would be as if these people never existed," said one Serbian fighter, identified in the documentary only as Branko. "I think our people understood that sooner or later some of these western organizations like the Hague Tribunal might come into Kosovo. We needed a good way to destroy evidence."

War crimes investigators have been confounded by what they suspect was a massive effort by Serbian troops to hide evidence. Thousands of Albanians and hundreds of Serbs and Gypsies are still missing in Kosovo. The bodies of some were later found dumped down wells, burned in homes and reburied in ordinary cemeteries.

So far, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has exhumed around 4,000 bodies and inspected hundreds of gravesites. An additional 3,500 people are officially registered as missing in Kosovo, including hundreds of Serbs and Gypsies.

The Serbian soldiers described in detail how they transported the bodies from graves and massacre sites in refrigerated, civilian trucks to a lead refinery in northern Kosovo. The refinery is part of a large mining complex called Trepca, which is located near the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica.

"Those furnaces burned at thousands of degrees," said another fighter called Milan. "I was told that it was enough heat to destroy everything. Every trace of the stuff they call DNA."

In an extensive tour of the Trepca complex, details of its layout and operations closely matched the descriptions from the Serbian fighters who said they helped incinerate the bodies. There were no visible signs of human remains outside the lead refinery's blast furnace, the site where the fighters said the bodies were destroyed. But nearby, reporters for American RadioWorks saw discarded civilian clothing, including men's and women's dress shoes.

"The Serbs learned their lesson from Bosnia, destroy the evidence," says Suzzane Ringaardd, who coordinates victim identification in Kosovo for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Serbian police and military sources say Slobodan Milosevic's senior commanders stepped up efforts to destroy evidence of possible war crimes in mid-April, 1999, shortly after NATO released satellite photographs of suspected atrocity sites in Kosovo.

Milosevic and four other officials were later indicted for crimes against humanity by the international tribunal. Milosevic was ousted in elections last October. Serbia's new leadership has refused to enforce an international arrest warrant and extradite Milosevic to the Hague.

Soon after the Kosovo war, investigators searched Trepca's mines amid reports that Serbian forces had dumped hundreds of bodies down the facility's deep shafts. But they found no remains. Serbian fighters told American RadioWorks reporters that the investigators looked in the wrong place.

This documentary, reported by MPR correspondents Michael Montgomery and Stephen Smith, and edited by NPR's Deborah George, is the second installment in "The Promise of Justice," an award-winning series on war crimes and the movement for international justice.

Last week, ARW's earlier documentary on Serbian atrocities, "Massacre at Cuska," won broadcast journalism's top award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Baton. In February "Massacre at Cuska" was broadcast on National Public Radio, and in November a Serbian-language version aired throughout Yugoslavia on the independent B92 radio network. The program presented, for the first time, detailed testimony from Serbian fighters alleging that Slobodan Milosevic's senior generals masterminded a campaign of murder and deportations against Kosovo Albanians, and it documents one episode of mass killing during the Kosovo War.

"Massacre at Cuska" can be heard on http://www.americanradioworks.org

American RadioWorks produces compelling long-form documentary specials on major policy and economic issues, social and cultural stories, and government and public service investigations. Major funding for American RadioWorks is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Minnesota Public Radio(R) is a network of 33 stations and 19 translators. MPR produces more national programming than any other station-based public radio network. With 85,000 members, it has the largest listener membership of any community-supported public radio network in the United States.