Investigation urged on Albanian organ traffic of Serbs

NEBI QENA
May 06, 2008

PRISTINA, Kosovo, A human rights group says new evidence has emerged to warrant further investigation into claims that ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo killed Serbs and sold their organs.

Human Rights Watch said it had information that bolsters allegations of abductions and cross-border transfers from Kosovo to Albania in June 1999.

At the time, NATO and the UN were moving into Kosovo at the end of the war between separatist rebels and Serbian forces.

The claims recently appeared in a book by former UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who wrote that she had been told by credible journalists of such an organ trafficking scheme.

Del Ponte wrote that, according to the sources, Kosovo Albanians transported between 100 and 300 people, most of them Serb civilians, by truck from Kosovo to a house near the Albanian town of Burrel.

ADel Ponte says that at the house, doctors extracted the captives' internal organs. He details the events in his book, The Hunt: War Criminals and Me.

Investigators visited northern Albania after UN officials in Kosovo passed on allegations of organ trafficking to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2002 and 2003.

However, they found no substantial evidence to support the claims.

Human Rights Watch said it had reviewed the inquiries conducted by the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the UN-run justice department in Kosovo and concluded they warrant further investigation.

``Serious and credible allegations have emerged about horrible abuses in Kosovo and Albania after the war,' Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with the New York-based rights group, said in a statement.

He said the governments in both Pristina and Tirana need to ``show their commitment to justice and the rule of law by conducting proper investigations.'

Human Rights Watch sent a letter in April to the prime ministers of Kosovo and Albania urging them to examine the claims, but said it received no response.

The group said it viewed information obtained by the tribunal from the journalists, including statements from seven ethnic Albanians guerrillas who ``gave details about participating in or witnessing the transfer of abducted Serbs and others prisoners.'

Tribunal spokeswoman Olga Kavran said Monday that the court had no additional comment to make beyond a statement it released April 16 to say that it had looked into the allegations and found no substantial evidence to support them.

However, she said Monday that the tribunal has received requests for assistance or information from Serbian authorities and from the United Nations mission in Kosovo.

The UN in Kosovo was not immediately available to confirm whether it is investigating the claims.