THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, you are interrupting the interpreter all the time. Before the interpreter has finished the answer, you have put another question. It is very difficult for us to hear the interpreter.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Thank you for your indication, Mr. President.
MARKOV: Inasmuch as the objective deduction regarding the autopsy I performed was in contradiction with this version, I did not make any deductions.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Consequently you did not make any deduction because the objective data of the autopsy testified to the fact that the corpses had been in the ground, not 3 years, but only 18 months?
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, you must remember that it is a double translation, and unless you pause more than you are pausing, your voice comes in upon the interpreter’s and we cannot hear the interpreter.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Very well, Mr. President.
MARKOV: Yes, that is quite correct.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Was there unanimity among the members of the commission regarding the time the corpses had been in the graves?
MARKOV: Most of the members of the delegation who performed the autopsies in the Katyn wood made their deductions without answering the essential question regarding the time the corpses had been buried. Some of them, as for instance, Professor Hajek, spoke about immaterial things; as for instance, that one of the killed had had pleurisy. Some of the others, as for instance, Professor Birkle from Bucharest, cut off some hair from a corpse in order to determine the age of the corpse. In my opinion that was quite immaterial. Professor Palmieri, on the basis of the autopsy that he performed, said that the corpse had been in the ground over a year but he did not determine exactly how long.
The only one who gave a definite statement in regard to the time the corpses had been buried was Professor Miloslavich from Zagreb, and he said it was 3 years. However, when the German book regarding Katyn was published, I read the result of his impartial statement regarding the corpse on which he had performed the autopsy. I had the impression that the corpse on which he had performed the autopsy did not differ in its stage of decomposition from the other corpses. This led me to think that his statement that the corpses had been in the ground for 3 years did not coincide with the facts of his description.