Serbian prosecutor insists on full probe into organ trafficking claims in Albania

BELGRADE, Serbia, Nov 4 – In an interview to an international news agency Tuesday Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said that Serbia would push for international pressure on Albania to investigate allegations that Serbs were killed there for their organs by the Kosova guerillas.
Vukcevic told the Associated Press he had informed his colleagues in Albania during last week’s visit about the locations of the alleged mass graves of the slain Serbs.
Vukcevic also said that Serbia has asked the United Nations Security Council for the findings by the U.N. in Kosova about the allegations, which first surfaced in a book by the former U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.
“This is a topic that deserves to be investigated, to determine whether it is true or not,” Vukcevic said.
Del Ponte wrote in her book that some 300 people, mostly Serbs, allegedly were transported to Albania by the Kosova guerillas and disappeared there. She said some might have been killed for their organs.
Both Albania and Kosovo have denied the allegations, while the European Union promised to check them.
Serb prosecutor Vukcevic said Serbia has information that the U.N. in Kosova have probed the issue and sent over their findings to the U.N. Security Council. He said that “certain evidence has been collected and we shall see what it is when we receive them.”
In Prishtina, a U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the issue, said the U.N. passed all the information they had to the U.N. tribunal in 2002 and 2003, but that no substantial evidence was found to support the claims that Serb civilians were killed in Albania.
Vukcevic said Belgrade will take the issue to all relevant international organizations and “seek help so that pressure be put on the Albanian side to determine what happened.”