Serbian prosecutors accuse Albania of organ trafficking after Kosova war

BELGRADE, Serbia, Nov 16 – Last week Serbia insisted it had evidence that 40 mental patients were taken from an asylum in Kosova to Albania in 2001 and that some of them might have ended up as the victims of a wider organ trafficking scheme.
Bruno Vekaric, the spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, said that evidence was key in an investigation over the fate of over 300 Serbs who were allegedly abducted by ethnic Albanian rebels during and after the 1998-99 Kosova war.
Last month Albanian Prosecutor-General Ina Rama refused to reopen a probe launched by Serbian war crimes prosecutors.
Investigating claims of organ-trafficking surfaced in a book earlier this year by the former chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.
In “The Hunt: War Criminals and Me,” Del Ponte wrote that, according to her sources, about 300 people were kidnapped during the Kosova war and transported across the border to Albania where they disappeared. There are reports that some ended as victims of an organ harvesting operation, Del Ponte wrote.
Rama said the country would only assist prosecutors from the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague on the case _ if they want to reopen it. Rama said the tribunal had investigated in 2005 and concluded the organ trafficking claims were not true.
Serbia hopes the Council of Europe will exert pressure on Albania to reopen the probe.
Vukcevic also said that UNMIK would be investigating the case further.
UNMIK officials have informed Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Dragoljub Stankovic that a team would be formed in Prishtina to investigate the case and invited Stankovic to join the investigation.