Wed 19 November, 2003 03:02
By Patricia Wilson
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says he is confident that human remains found by a U.S. Defence Department team in Laos are those of his younger brother Charles and an Australian companion missing since 1974.
"I am 99.9 per cent certain given the personal effects that were found," the former Vermont governor told reporters aboard his chartered jet en route to a campaign stop in Houston on Tuesday. Dean said those included a pair of shoes, one sock and a POW/MIA bracelet that his brother wore on his left wrist
The skeletal remains of the two men, who went missing during a tourist trip to the communist-run country that was embroiled in the Vietnam War, were discovered during the excavation of a rice paddy in Bolikhamxai province in Laos between November 8 and 15.
They will be flown to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii for forensic testing to establish their identity after the Pentagon team's mission ends on November 25, said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office. Dean said he planned to fly there for a November 26 ceremony in which the remains are to be repatriated to the United States.
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