ZELENI JADAR (AP) - Forensic experts working for three weeks at a mass grave in eastern Bosnia have so far exhumed 126 bodies of victims from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, officials said yesterday. The mass grave, the third found in Zeleni Jadar, near Srebrenica, and one of dozens discovered in eastern Bosnia, may contain up to 150 bodies, according to the prosecutor at the site, Fatima Hadzibeganovic. «We found skeletons of these civilians with bullets in their heads. This means that many of them were killed execution-style,» she said.

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia has issued an international arrest warrant for a former Yugoslav army officer acquitted by the UN war crimes tribunal, state news agency Hina reported yesterday. A court in the eastern town of Vukovar charged Miroslav Radic with responsibility for the execution of civilians and prisoners of war after Vukovar fell to Serb paramilitaries and Yugoslav troops in November 1991, following a three-month siege. Last week the Hague-based tribunal sentenced former Yugoslav army officer Mile Mrksic to 20 years in prison for allowing the massacre of 194 people taken from a hospital in Vukovar. A second ex-officer, Veselin Sljivancanin, was sentenced to five years for torture but cleared of more serious charges, while Radic was acquitted on all counts.

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro wrote in an article published yesterday that he urged Slobodan Milosevic in April 1999 not to put three captured US soldiers on trial, to avoid any potential international outcry. Castro referred to the cases of US soldiers Andrew Ramirez, Christopher Stone and Steven Gonzales, who were captured on Yugoslavia's border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. They were released in May 1999. «It would not be advisable for you to try the three US prisoners. International public opinion is very sensitive and there would be a great movement against the Serbs,» Castro wrote to Milosevic, according to the article published in the official Cuban media. Castro said Milosevic essentially accepted the suggestion. (AFP)