Albania ready for organ trafficking probe says official

TIRANA, July 10 – An Albanian lawmaker who was representing his country at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna, Austria said last weekend that Tirana has always been ready to cooperate in the investigation into the illicit trade of human organs in Kosovo.
Aldo Bumci took part at a panel on the combat against illicit trade in human organs in Kosovo, reported Tanjug news agency.
Bumci said that Albania had cooperated before, in this case with The Hague Tribunal, adding that there is no other alternative to conducting an investigation as soon as possible.
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic welcomed the commitment of the Albanian authorities to take part in the investigation and the statement of Albania’s representative that there is no alternative to conducting an investigation.
In his December report, Swiss senator Dick Marty, working as a Council of Europe investigator, said Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, then military leader of ethnic Albanian rebels fighting Serb forces during the 1999 war, led a network dealing in human organs.
The report claimed that Serb prisoners were held in the Brama home north of Tirana before being murdered.
Thaci has flatly denied this.
The organ trafficking claims, which were first made public in a 2008 book by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte, resurfaced three years after Kosovo declared independence.
Serbia has called on the U.N. Security Council to authorize an international investigation.
The European Union mission, known as EULEX, has launched a preliminary investigation into Marty’s allegations.
Yet so far, both the U.N. and EULEX have maintained that their investigations into the alleged organ harvesting have failed to yield any evidence.