ALBANIAN: Skeletons exhumed near a church in southern Albania on behalf of the families of Greek soldiers fallen in the second World War are to be analysed to show whether they are indeed Greeks or Albanian villagers.
An Orthodox priest and an ethnic Greek who hired five workers to exhume 69 skeletons and store them in shining metal caskets are under investigation for "violating graves", officials in the rural community said.
The team worked undisturbed for a month until one worker by the name of Altin Ballabani was caught digging on his own, got fired and "denounced them to avenge himself", said Karafil Pasho of the local government.
Mr Ballabani says the bones are not Greek but Albanian, and the dispute over just whose remains were laid to rest in the ancient churchyard has inflamed rivalries between Greeks and Albanians that date back years.
South Albania's Bishopric backed Fr Vasil Thomollari's statement that he had simply officiated over the exhumation in accordance with Orthodox rites at the request of relatives.
"My presence was requested by a group of relatives who came to exhume their loved ones, soldiers fallen during the Italian-Greek war," Fr Thomollari said.
He has not identified the group. He prays "the Lord may enlighten the minds of those slandering the church".
But prosecutor Silvana Pani said the priest had not shown up to discuss handing over the bones as evidence.
"The solution is in the boxes. Let's go and check them and the analysis will tell to whom they belong," Ms Pani said.
Fr Thomollari say he refuses to talk to justice officials in protest at the "violence and terror" of police in surrounding the church in his own village, where the bones are now stored. Ms Pani said two gravediggers spoke of an ethnic Greek Albanian citizen who told them where to excavate after consulting a map with the graves marked on it. "They said they found military jackets, shoes and Greek coins," Ms Pani added. They were paid 1,500 lek (€12) per grave.
Mounds on the east and south sides of the 12th century Byzantine-style St Mary's church in Kosine became the burial ground of Greek soldiers who died at a field hospital.
But the site also served as the cemetery of Albanian villagers, with elm trees or stones marking the graves.