Serbia Organ Trafficking Report Probe Sought

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia urged international authorities on Monday to investigate allegations of a trade in the kidneys and other organs of civilians slain in the aftermath of Kosovo's 1999 war for secession, officials said.

A Serbian government official traveled Monday to the headquarters of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, to meet with European human rights officials as part of a diplomatic offensive to trigger the probe.

Swiss senator Dick Marty last week released a report on the alleged illicit trafficking of human organs by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Marty's report to the Council of Europe suggested Kosovo's Western-backed prime minister and former rebel commander Hashim Thaci was behind the grisly trade.

The kidneys and other organs were allegedly removed from Serbs and other Kosovar opponents of the KLA in detention facilities in neighboring Albania. Thaci and Albanian officials have vehemently denied the accusations.

"Serbia is seeking nothing but the full truth about those accusations," said Serbian official Rasim Ljajic before he left for Strasbourg. "Without justice, there cannot be reconciliation in the region."

Thaci has dismissed the allegations as "ill-intentioned propaganda," driven by a Serb-inspired agenda to undermine Kosovo's statehood. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia has refused to recognize its sovereignty.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday that Marty's report created "a completely new situation" that illustrates there were not only Serb crimes in Kosovo during the conflict, but also ethnic Albanian crimes.

"Serbia awaited for years for such a report by international institutions," Tadic said, appealing for all war crimes to be prosecuted.

Meanwhile, nine former Serb soldiers went on trial in Belgrade on Monday for their alleged crimes. A court indictment said they are charged with the brutal killing of 44 ethnic Albanians during the 1999 war – an act in which the indictment said they showed "particular brutality, ruthlessness and insensitivity."

In the court, former Serb commander Toplica Miladinovic pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder, looting, rape, intimidation and destruction of property in the western Kosovan village of Cuska in May 1999. The crime is considered one of the most brutal of the war that left thousands dead and nearly a million displaced.

Serbian war crimes prosecutors also told reporters in Belgrade on Monday they would not raise charges against Kosovo's prime minister Thaci for the alleged organ trafficking because he is not available to the Balkan country's judiciary, and any charge would sound too politically motivated.

Serbia's deputy war crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said "there should be no political euphoria over the reported trafficking, but a serious investigation to determine who was and who wasn't responsible for the crimes."

"I think it's in the interest of Europe, Kosovo authorities and us in Serbia, and most of all the families of the victims," Vekaric said.

Jelko Kacin, in charge of the European Parliament's evaluation reports on Serbia's bid to join the European Union, said in Belgrade on Monday that Marty's report does not contain enough evidence to support the claims, but added that a legal investigation should be conducted.

"This will represent a great challenge for the judiciary in Albania and Kosovo, and international institutions should be included," Kacin said.

Marty led a team of investigators to Kosovo and Albania in 2009, following allegations of organ trafficking published in a book by former chief U.N. War Crimes tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte who said she was given information by Western journalists.

Marty's investigation found that there were a number of detention facilities in Albania, where the victims were allegedly held once the hostilities in Kosovo were over in 1999, including a "state-of-the-art reception center for the organized crime of organ trafficking."

Comments

[Cougar29]

10:43 AM on 12/21/2010

I thought only Is raelis specialized in organ trafficking?

[DC]

11:18 AM on 12/21/2010

There are no monopolies on that and it goes on everywhere -- especially in war zones or where there is a lot of poverty and few controls. I suspect that they do not want to investigate too much into this as many of those organs likely wind up from transplant via private arrangements all over Europe.

[Otium]

07:37 AM on 12/21/2010

KLA = Khomeini & Laden's Army

[TROOPER-X]

05:28 AM on 12/21/2010

Another "by-product" of our appeasement policies, designed to pacify the muslim nation.

[yasunari]

05:21 AM on 12/21/2010

Serbia, Kosovo, albania, seem to provie organs.
But why not talking about who's buying?

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-wanted-for-role-in-kosovo-organ-trading-ring-1.324520

[techjockey]

02:12 AM on 12/21/2010

Anyone caught involved in this should be put away FOREVER.
There is nothing rehabilitatable about someone that would do this.

[Pot]

11:47 PM on 12/20/2010

If it's true, that is pretty effed up and grisly.

[TomHunter]

09:16 PM on 12/20/2010

With regret, I can confirm that this unholy combination of organized crime and unwilling organ transplants has become the ultimate money maker in the former Soviet Union.
I make this assertion based on the work that I undertook during the writing of my thriller novel, "The Butcher of Leningrad", which is about this precise subject:

"Russia has a terrible problem with abandoned children who live in the sewers. The Russian Mafia uses these homeless kids for organ transplants. An American reporter in St. Petersburg discovers what the Russian Mafia is doing but he only succeeds in bringing their fury down on his own head. In this fast-paced thriller, you will enter the raw underbelly of modern Russia. You will see depravity and vicious cruelty--things you cannot believe one human could do to another. You will see things that will shake you to the core of your being. By the time you come out on the other side of this thrilling odyssey into the dark heart of Russia, you will be changed forever."

--"The Butcher of Leningrad" (a thriller) by Tom Hunter
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leningrad

[McMarcia]

08:53 PM on 12/20/2010

Even if some ethnic serbs in Bosnia committed atrocities, it does not excuse Albanians committing atrocities against Serbian POW's and civilians in Kosovo, most of whom were not involved during the 1991-1992 civil war in Bosnia, and many who were just children at the time.

Where there is smoke, there is fire, and tg hese stories have been told for years, it is about time this investigation is publicized and the proof dugup. I hope the guilty parties are brought to justice and sentenced to life in prison.

The only solution to stop organ trafficking is a stage sanctioned payment program to families, so that more are motivated to donate family members' organs after death.

[ivan kovac]

07:57 PM on 12/20/2010

Why isn't Serbia seeking for Ratko Mladic? He killed 8.000 Bosniaks in less than 3 days,and is considered to be the worst war criminal since the WW II.

[Martha T]

08:35 PM on 12/20/2010

when you Croatia brings Agim Cecu up for trial for wars crimes against Serbs in Operation Storm....

[Rozanna]

11:34 AM on 12/21/2010

Yep, just keep the hate alive. It will make everything so much better for your people. (I am adressing both Ivan. Kovac and Martha T here).

[TYRANNASAURUS]

07:02 PM on 12/20/2010

Serbia Seeks Probe Into Organ Trafficking Report......

Give me a break......they know what's going on...and so does the US government.

[llewton]

06:28 PM on 12/20/2010

Kosovo is a Serbian province (unrecognized by Serbia as any kind of a "state", unrecognized by 2/3 of the world and not a member of the UN, or even FIFA), so let's have the headline stand, shall we, even though it's more of the same thrown our way.

But the reason I comment is this: "The kidneys and other organs were allegedly removed from Serbs and other Kosovar opponents of the KLA..."

They were not opponents, they were civilians, sometimes kidnapped in broad day light in the middle of the street as they went shopping, and this is clear in the report, which you can read on the Council of Europe website. Then again, I suppose that civilians really are opponents of terrorist militias such as the KLA.

The KLA btw was on the State Department list of terrorist organizations until they removed it from there in 2008, for the sake of "pragmatic policy" one assumes. One also assumes that's how Bin Ladens of this world are born.

Anyway, can't wait for Wikileaks to expose the dirty games in and around the Balkans.

[taketheother]

06:27 PM on 12/20/2010

this is ridiculous you finally publish something about this story, but totally get it wrong

the council for europe assigned mr marty to investigate these allegations 2 years ago - he has been investigating the kla and mr. thaci the so-called prime minister of kosovo for 2 years, and authored this report. His investigation found that hashim thaci, who was a big ally to the united states, and the person this country and the clinton administration supported for many years is guilty of being the ring leader of a vast criminal organization that trafficks in heroin, humans, and organs, and has done so for many many years. He also found that western governments who supported thaci and the kosovo liberation army have known since before 1999 what the kla was doing and ignored it. It means that people who were allies to mr. thaci including joe biden, madeleine albright, bill clinton and others have some explaining to do. It seems that they have all supported a person who according to this report is a war criminal and mobster who sells human organs and drugs

[Pot]

11:48 PM on 12/20/2010

What did they get wrong? You never pointed out what exactly was wrong in the story.

[Rozanna]

05:49 PM on 12/20/2010

I'm glad Kosovo is an independent state. But the trade in body parts is truly horrific. The people in this regione (the former Yugoslavia) keep wreaking vengeance after vengeance after vengeance on each other. It's worse than the Middle East.

[who38]

06:37 PM on 12/20/2010

Body parts are being traded in New Jersey as well.

[Rozanna]

10:35 PM on 12/20/2010

I don't doubt that.

[Pot]

11:48 PM on 12/20/2010

What does that have to do with the comment?

[TXfemmom]

05:16 PM on 12/20/2010

I dare say there were war crimes a plenty committed by both sides in this, but if this man was indeed involved in the trafficing of human organs, then they should remove his without an anesthetic.

[gwinegarden]

03:37 PM on 12/20/2010

people and organ trafficking is the new "thing" for criminals.

[who38]

06:43 PM on 12/20/2010

No; it is the latest in health care.  Trafficking occurs throughout the ME.  Do you recall that some rabbis in New Jersey were recently arrested for organ trafficking?  And, should you need an organ transplant, you may want to move to another state so that your chances of getting one improve, eg. Steve Jobs move to Arkansas.  And, I think that UCLA was "busted" for giving an organ to a Japanese gangster for a "donation" to the medical school.

[gwinegarden]

07:03 PM on 12/20/2010

It's all about money.

[amd02148]

11:12 PM on 12/20/2010

gwine its nothing new.