Serbs used chemical weapons, scientist says

By Barbara Crossette, The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS -- A Belgian scientist is reported to have found evidence that Yugoslavia used chemical weapons on ethnic Albanian fighters and civilians in Kosovo during the months of the NATO bombing and before peacekeepers arrived.

His findings were immediately challenged by U.S. and U.N. experts.

Janes Defence Weekly says in its latest issue, to be published today in London, that the findings showed that Kosovar Albanians were attacked with BZ gas or a similar compound, which does not kill but causes disorientation and confusion. Its use is prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Belgian scientist, Aubin Heyndrickx, director of the International Reference University Laboratories in Ghent, went to the Balkans in May to take samples from Kosovar Albanians in two hospitals, one in Kosovo and one in Albania. The rebels had bases in northern Albania and Serbs fired over the border.

Heyndrickx was invited by the Kosovo Liberation Army, Janes said.

An analysis of the samples led Heyndrickx to conclude that a cocktail of agents may have been used in shells fired in Kosovo, where, he said, people reported that "hundreds" had been affected.

U.S. experts reacted with skepticism. Heyndrickx, who has done similar studies in Iran and Angola, did not respond to calls yesterday to his home and office seeking more information.

John Parachini, a chemical weapons expert at the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said charges of chemical attacks have been made frequently by all sides in the decade of civil war in the Balkans. All have been hard to prove, though experts agree Yugoslavia has such weapons.

At the Monterey Institute in California, Jason Pate, a research associate in the chemical and biological nonproliferation project, said BZ can be very hard to detect because there are no lingering effects, contrary to Heyndrickx's report.

"There are not really long-term effects from BZ intoxication, so the soldiers would be able to return to work rather quickly," he added. "But in the short term, it is certainly an effective tactic."

He said that he would not be surprised to learn that BZ had been used in Kosovo but that proving it would be difficult.