By Judge DEAN PINELES
I served as an international criminal judge with the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) during 2011-13, and was a member of the three-judge panel that decided the Medicus human organ trafficking case that gained world-wide attention.
This case is significant in connection with Prime Minister Rama’s speech before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on October 12 in Strasbourg, as I will explain.
Back in December of 2010, before the Medicus trial began, Dick Marty, a Swiss Senator with the Parliamentary Assembly, issued his infamous report titled Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human Organs in Kosovo.
As is well known, Marty alleged that serious crimes were committed by certain high-ranking members of the Kosovo Liberation Army during and after the war with Serbia in 1998-99, and he identified by name Hasim Thaci, Kadri Veseli and other prominent commanders. The crimes included inhuman conditions of detention, torture, murder, and forced disappearances of Serbian prisoners and Albanian collaborators.
He also claimed that a small number of forced human organ extractions had taken place at a yellow house in rural Albania for trafficking in the illegal international organ market. However, he did not provide any evidence to support these allegations, which were vehemently denied in Kosovo.
The Parliamentary Assembly then adopted the report verbatim in a resolution in January 2011 without insisting on any evidentiary support. The resolution is only 3 ½ pages long but refers to organ trafficking no less than eight times.
The resolution also contained this language in paragraph 5, which brought the Medicus case to the fore, although in a way that was unexpected.
“This criminal activity [organ trafficking]…has continued…until today, as demonstrated by an investigation being carried out by …EULEX relating to the Medicus clinic in Pristina.”
This statement in the resolution is based on paragraph 168 of Marty’s report which says,
“In particular, we found that a number of credible, convergent indications that the organ-trafficking component of the post-conflict detentions described in our report is closely related to the contemporary case of the Medicus clinic…”
It went on to say,
“However, out of respect for the ongoing investigations and judicial proceedings being led by EULEX . . ., we feel obligated at this moment to refrain from publishing our findings in this regard.”
The Medicus trial began several months later in October 2011. During the trial, the judicial panel considered it important to take the testimony of Dick Marty. After all, he claimed to have relevant findings concerning a link between war-time trafficking and the Medicus case, even though he chose to withhold the findings while the case was in the pre-trial phase.
We then made a formal request through diplomatic channels to the Council of Europe for his attendance at the trial. We assumed, of course, that he and the Council would readily agree, now that the truth-seeking process was underway.
To our shock and anger, Marty and the Council refused, claiming that he had immunity from testifying, despite the fact that the resolution exhorted everyone to do whatever they could to stop this shameful practice and bring the perpetrators to justice.
There are several possibilities why Marty refused to testify. He may have wanted to protect the identity of his sources of information, if he had any, although they could have used pseudonyms. He may have feared for his own safety in Kosovo, although there were ready means available for testifying remotely. Or he may not have possessed any reliable evidence as many in Kosovo believed.
In Prime Minister Rama’s impassioned speech to the Council in Strasbourg, he implored the Council to revisit and revise its resolution as it pertains to claims of KLA organ trafficking for the lack of any evidence.
The Prime Minister is correct that at no time, either then or now, has Marty or anyone else come forward with any reliable evidence to justify Marty’s trafficking allegations, although Marty was offered the perfect chance to do so during the Medicus trial.
And today, what is especially important is that the indictments filed in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague against some of those high-profile KLA veterans named by Marty as organ traffickers, such as Thaci and Veseli, contain no charges concerning organ trafficking or even mention it in passing, after many years of investigation.
Thus, it would clearly appear that Mr. Rama’s demand that the entire matter be revisited and corrected by the Council is eminently reasonable based on the current state of the historical record and in the interest of truth, justice and fairness.
