Eberhart was shocked by the devastation in the Kosovo villages VIDEO CNN's Pierre Thomas talks with an FBI investigator who says he will remember Kosovo crime scenes for many years. (July 13) Windows Media 28K 80K  ALSO: U.N. prosecutor and Serb opposition tighten noose on Milosevic Opposition gathers signatures, pledges march on Belgrade

July 13, 1999
Web posted at: 9:33 p.m. EDT (0133 GMT)

From Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Art Eberhart, a 24-year veteran of the FBI, is no stranger to crime scenes. But he was not prepared for what he saw recently in Kosovo, as an investigator of alleged "ethnic cleansing" by Serb forces in the Yugoslav province.

"I certainly saw photographs on the news. I read about it in the newspaper, but I could never really visualize the destruction," Eberhart said. "It was devastating to me. It was simply village after village, house after house, burned to ashes."

Eberhart was one of 65 FBI and U.S. military forensic specialists who went to Kosovo to assist the U.N. war crimes tribunal gather evidence of suspected atrocities against ethnic Albanians.

The FBI investigated nine sites, examining at least 56 bodies.

"My first site I had to actually deal with a woman who lost her father and her brother at the crime scene," Eberhart said. "They were actually shot there and then buried by family members in the garden in the backyard.

"There were certainly times when she was crying on my shoulder and all I could do was put my arm around her," he said. "But there were other times she was more than happy to try to solve this crime, to try to give us evidence. The emotional span was like a roller coaster."

At the last site that Eberhart visited, his most vivid memory is of the dignity of an elderly man who stood by during a field autopsy of his brother.

"We actually got permission from this elderly gentleman to exhume his 86-year-old brother, and we did an autopsy right there in the field," Eberhart recalled. "As we were leaving, this 90-year-old man helped us, or wanted to help us, rebury his brother.

"And he actually took a rake and smoothed the grave over and came up to all of us and gave every one of us a hug," he continued. "And I'll always remember him standing on a hillside as we were leaving."

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