This issue was addressed specifically in May of 2000 during during the Krstic Srebrenica trial with the testimony of Jose Pablo Baraybar, who worked on the Srebrenica exhumations and is now head of the OMPF in Kosovo.
21 Q. We can move on to the next objective of
22 forensic anthropology, and that is the MNI or minimum
23 number of individuals. Now, before I show you any
24 exhibits, can you explain to the Judges what the
25 purpose of the MNI test is?
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1 A. Right. If we were to encounter a grave with
2 complete individuals, one of the first questions that
3 the Prosecution will ask us is: "How many people were
4 in the grave?" In that case, we will do what we
5 normally know as a head count. You can just simply
6 count how many bodies you are seeing.
7 I mentioned earlier that the human body
8 contains 206 bones. Let's imagine for a moment that
9 instead of complete individuals, we have a number of
10 fragments of people, a number of body parts in there.
11 You have seen from the previous testimonies that it is
12 not easy, even while excavating, to be able to count
13 how many remains we have there. And even if we can
14 count them, we still do not know how many people are
15 represented by those remains.
16 Therefore, the minimum number of individuals
17 is a conservative, again, approach as to say at least
18 how many individuals are necessary to account for the
19 number of body parts or bones we have recovered.
20 Q. Now, you've put together a number of exhibits
21 to explain this scientific concept to the Judges. And
22 if you have Exhibit 227 -- the usher can assist you --
23 could you explain to the Judges what is represented by
24 this diagram?
25 A. Although I am using the example of a left
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1 forearm in this case, this is basically the same thing
2 as a head count, meaning two left forearms will
3 indicate that at least we have two people, primarily
4 because nobody tends to have more than two left
5 forearms.
6 If I may move to the second exhibit, 229.
7 Right. This actually is more like the cases we've been
8 dealing with, meaning fragments. Let's just assume
9 again that we have two females that are from the same
10 side but are two different parts of the female. In
11 this one we got the top or proximal part of the bone
12 and the mid-part of the bone, and in this one we have
13 the mid-part and the bottom part, that is, the distal
14 part.
15 MR. CAYLEY: Mr. Baraybar, if I could just
16 interrupt you there. The witness is indicating, on
17 Exhibit 229, that in the left portion of the photograph
18 is the proximal portion of the femur, and in the
19 right-hand photograph, the distal portion of the right
20 femur.
21 Q. Please continue, sir.
22 A. Considering that we cannot actually fit these
23 two fragments and make one femur, we have to take again
24 a conservative approach and say that we assume that
25 these two fragments, although not fitting with one
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1 another, represent one individual. That would be the
2 way we would construct a minimal number of
3 individuals. Otherwise, we could say that these are
4 two femurs. But we are taking it as only one.
5 Q. But am I right in saying that potentially in
6 any grave site, these two portions of bone could
7 represent two individuals?
8 A. That is correct.
9 Q. So this technique of counting individuals
10 naturally always under-counts the number of people in a
11 grave?
12 A. That is correct.
Give it a rest already Joan - the only way to perpetuate your version of Srebrenica is to lie, so at least do yourself the favor of not trying to recycle lies who's shelf life has already expired.
For example, the guy says that if they have two left forearms it is 2 separate people - but only if you found the full number of left forearms for the entire site could you say it added to the total claimed. He then goes on to mention only parts of another part of the body, but never accounts if those separate parts could also be from one or both of the forearmed-boned found individuals, in his example.
So, if he finds parts of legbones and knows it is from two separate people (counting it as 2 people, as they would be), then is also counting the 2 left-forearm bones as 2 separate people (as indeed they would be), but one or both of the forearmed people could be matched with the sets of other bones, and in that way 2 people could become up to 4 in this case, and if they continue in that way they could multiply people more based on the number of fragments and bones.