Page "Račak massacre" Paragraph 19

At the end of January 1999, the United States was reported to have leaked telephone intercepts that were said to prove the role of the Yugoslav government in the killings.

According to the Washington Post, the intercepts showed that the Yugoslav government had ordered security forces to " go in hard " to the Račak area to find and kill the KLA guerrillas responsible for earlier attacks on the Serbian police.

Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Šainović and Interior Ministry General Sreten Lukić reportedly expressed concern about reaction to the Račak assault and discussed how to make the killings at Račak appear to be the result of combat between government troops and KLA rebels.

On the day of the attack on Račak, Sainović was aware that the assault was underway and asked how many people had been killed.

Lukić replied that as of that moment the tally stood at 22.

Following the international uproar about the killings, Sainović told Lukić to re-enter Račak and retrieve the bodies.

He also told Lukić that the ICTY prosecutor Louise Arbour was not to be allowed into the country.