MARKOV: It did not and it does not correspond with my opinion then and now.
DR. STAHMER: I have no further questions.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, were any of the bodies which were examined by the members of this delegation exhumed from the ground in your presence?
MARKOV: The corpses which we dissected were selected among the top layers of the graves which had been already exhumed. They were taken out of the graves and given to us for dissection.
THE PRESIDENT: Was there anything to indicate, in your opinion, that the corpses had not been buried in those graves?
MARKOV: As far as traces are concerned, and as far as the layers of corpses were preserved, they were stuck to each other; so that if they had been transferred, I do not believe that this could have been done recently. This could not have been done immediately before our arrival.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that you think the corpses had been buried in those graves?
MARKOV: I cannot say whether they were put into those graves immediately after death had come, as I have no data to confirm this, but they did not look as if they had just been put there.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it possible, in your opinion as an expert, to fix the date of March or April or such a short period as that, 3 years before the examination which you have made?