Serbian police said today they had found a mass grave thought to contain the corpses of Kosovo Albanians presumed to have been killed by Serbian forces, put in a truck and dumped in a reservoir in 1999.
A statement on the Serbian government Internet site said that the grave was in southwest Serbia on the border with Bosnia.
"Preparations are under way on the site and the whole affair will be dealt with, as is normal procedure, by the appropriate state prosecutor who will carry out the exhumation of the remains," a senior police officer said.
The grave apparently contains the corpses of more than 60 Kosovo Albanians killed and then put in a refrigerated van and dumped in the Perucac reservoir in April 1999 before being recovered and buried in the mass grave.
"More than 60 bodies were found in the Perucac hydroelectric plant reservoir," the statement said, adding that a Serbian interior ministry team had recently visited the area to investigate reports about a van full of corpses in the reservoir.
"Seven bodies first of all came to the surface," the statement said, quoting police, adding that "the bodies were taken away but two days later a container from a truck holding between 50 and 60 bodies also came to the surface."
Belgrade's radio B92 had earlier reported police saying that a refrigerated truck containing between 50 and 60 bodies had been fished out of a reservoir in southwest Serbia in April 1999.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians went missing during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, and the West accused Slobodan Milosevic's forces of committing widespread atrocities.
Mr Milosevic is now awaiting trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for his alleged part in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the province.