- BELGRADE (AP) -- A probe
into the mysterious shooting of two soldiers has revealed the existence
beneath the Serbian capital of a secret communist-era network of tunnels
and bunkers that could have served as recent hideouts for some of the world's
most-wanted war crimes suspects.
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- The three square kilometre complex - dubbed a "concrete
underground city" by the local media - was built deep inside a rocky
hill in a residential area of Belgrade in the 1960s on the orders of communist
strongman Josip Broz Tito. Until recently its existence was known only
to senior military commanders and politicians.
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- The secret was revealed during an investigation this
month into the deaths of two soldiers who were guarding an entrance to
the complex. Both were found fatally shot.
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- Official explanations of the Oct. 5 incident have failed
to satisfy the soldiers' families or a skeptical media, sparking speculation
that fugitive Bosnian officers wanted by the United Nations for atrocities
during the 1990s Balkans wars may have sought refuge in the complex, which
was originally designed to resist nuclear attack.
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- "My son died because he saw some big secret,"
Petar Milovanovic, the father of one of the two soldiers, said recently.
"They had to die to take the secret to the grave with them."
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- The army initially said the two soldiers shot each other,
then backtracked and reported that one had murdered the other before committing
suicide. An independent commission is now investigating.
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- The circumstances surrounding the deaths - and any link
with high-profile war crimes fugitives such as Gen. Ratko Mladic - remain
murky. But the probe has shed light on a complex that was once so secret
military men here say NATO didn't even suspect its existence when it bombed
Serbia in 1999.
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- Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia from World War II until he
died in 1980, ordered it built because he feared a nuclear attack by the
Soviet Union after his country's 1948 split with the Eastern European communist
bloc led by Joseph Stalin.
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- The entrance is hidden beneath a hilltop army barracks
in Belgrade's Topcider district, which is home to several embassies and
luxurious diplomatic residences.
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- According to media reports citing unnamed military sources,
a 56-metre deep elevator shaft leads down to a six-storey underground complex
dug into rock and reinforced by three-metre thick concrete walls.
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- Retired Gen. Momcilo Perisic, who was the army's chief
of staff until 1999, confirmed that the sprawling complex was intended
as a wartime command centre.
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- The main hall is as big as a subway station and could
be used to shelter tanks and trucks, the reports by the Vecernje Novosti
newspaper and other media said.
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- Tunnels stretching for hundreds of yards link palaces,
bunkers and safe houses. Rooms are separated by steel vault doors three
feet high and less than half-a-metre thick. The complex has its own power
supply and ventilation.
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- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is believed
to have convened his war Cabinet there in 1999 while NATO bombs fell on
his country for 78 days to punish him for cracking down on independence-seeking
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
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- The complex is so well designed that Yugoslav construction
firms were reportedly hired by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to
build a duplicate bunker near his hometown of Tikrit in the 1980s.
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- It would appear the ideal hiding place for a fugitive
like Gen. Mladic, who is believed to have the support of Milosevic-era
generals still commanding the army. The Bosnian Serb army chief was indicted
by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the 1995 massacre of nearly
8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, Bosnia.
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- Serbian Defence Minister Prvoslav Davinic has insisted
that no war-crimes suspects have been found inside. Otherwise, the military
has been tightlipped about the complex, even threatening to prosecute media
that have described it for violating laws on disclosing state secrets.
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- But once-unsuspecting neighbours make no secret about
their desire to get a peek at Tito's tunnels.
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- "I didn't have any idea that I have been living
on top of a major military secret," said Radmila Spasic, a 60-year-old
housewife. "Now that the big secret is revealed, the army should open
the complex to the public. It would became Belgrade's major tourist attraction."
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