Title:OPERATION AGRICOLA IV, KOSOVO, 2000-2001 (TAPE 5) [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BFM 386
Other titles:COLLECTION OF ROYAL MARINES TAPES [Allocated Title]
Summary: Operation Sexton: further scenes at a makeshift roadside grave in Podujevo, where alleged victims of war crimes are to be exhumed for forensic analysis.
Description: Military personnel carry out a final search before the mechanical digger begins to exhume the ground; members of the forensic team put on their white suits. Soldier with cadaver dog searches the partially excavated hole. First bodies are removed in white body bags. A second hole is excavated, revealing a series of wooden planks; underneath are further bodies wrapped in blue plastic, These are bagged and stretchered into the back of an ambulance. Marines talk to local children nearby. Interview with Musician Bush (?), a Royal Marine Bandsman who is taking part in the exhumation. Civilian member of the British Forensic Team describes to camera the regretful necessity of exhuming the bodies because the cause of death need to be examined to establish the cause of death. The bodies are taken to a mortuary facility, where they are stretchered in and laid down.
Convoy: camera focuses on a tanker (described in shotsheet as a fuel tanker but actually carrying water) as it drives through the Kosovan landscape.
ROYAL MARINES VIDEO PRODUCTION UNIT SHOTSHEET
The following has been copied, without amendment, from RMVPU electronic shotsheets:
TIME DESCRIPTION
00:00 BARS
00:30 L/s military personnel searching and removing flowers
01:22 L/s military personnel carrying tools on stretcher
01:32 L/s foreground scientists background digger digging up land
02:50 W/s personnel putting on forensic suits in front of 4 tonne
03:13 L/s digger digging land c/u of ground being dug
04:51 L/s goats pan away to forensic scientists
05:15 L/s personnel searching hole
08:11 L/s building pan away to personnel removing bodies
10:14 L/s personnel carrying and placing bodies onto 4 tonne
11:07 M/s hole being dug out by digger
11:40 M/s personnel searching hole
15:01 M/s personnel removing bodies
16:08 L/s personnel carrying and loading bodies on 4 tonne
16:36 L/s personnel with children and Land Rover pan away to w/s
17:19 W/s building pan to personnel in hole
17:42 L/s personnel carrying and loading bodies onto 4 tonne
18:18 W/s personnel with children 2 tanks go past behind them
19:19 L/s personnel carry many bodies to 4 tonne
Break in tape
00:00 L/s personnel carrying and loading bodies onto 4 tonne
03:10 Personnel in forensic suit being interviewed
05:59 M/s personnel in civvies (British) being interviewed
08:01 Personnel carrying bodies from 4 tonne into building
09:45 Personnel carrying bodies, camera follows them into building
11:10 M/s personnel carrying bodies off 4 tonne
11:47 L/s camera ( on moving vehicle) looking at front of fuel tank
12:45 M/s driver in fuel truck
12:58 L/s fuel truck driving off down road
13:10 W/s landscape pans wide to rest of landscape
13:54 W/s fuel truck driving past camera round corner
Tape ends
Alternative Title:COLLECTION OF ROYAL MARINES TAPES [Allocated Title]
