Tirana ready to support international probe of alleged organ traffic

TIRANA, March 8 – Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ilir Meta on Monday expressed Tirana’s full will to support any international investigation on the alleged organ trafficking in the country.
Meta told ATA news agency that, “The Albanian Government is open to cooperate with international institutions on the issue and interested to end these unmotivated and unfounded allegations.”
He said that, “Albania boasts a record of close and unreserved cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal of former Yugoslavia, and in particular with its special investigation team that visited Albania in 2003, with the stated purpose to thoroughly look into them. The inquiry concluded that the allegations could not be substantiated by any proof whatsoever and were groundless.”
He reiterated, “ƴhe commitment and willingness of the Albanian Government to fully and unreservedly cooperate with the ICTY and the Council of Europe, in order to come up with a definitive answer to these claims that in our opinion are unfounded. It is our firm intention and interest to bring this process to an end, hence definitely closing the chapter related to these allegations.”
Last month U.N. independent human rights expert Philip Alston urged Albanian authorities to fully cooperate with an international investigation on alleged killing of kidnapped Serb civilians after Kosovo’s war.
Serbian officials say they have evidence that ethnic Albanian guerrillas sent kidnapped Serb civilians during Kosovo’s war to Albania, then removed their organs and sold them on the black market.
Kosovo and Albania have strongly denied the allegations of organ trafficking which first surfaced in a book by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.
Alston said that all Albanian top officials had considered those charges as ridiculous but not offering a “meaningful cooperation to a Council of Europe investigation.”
Last year Swiss Senator Dick Marty led a Council of Europe probe into the allegations. There is still no conclusion to that.
“I would call on the government to indeed indicate that it will remove the barrier of formal obstacles,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
A UN probe in 2004 had given no proof to the claim but Serbia has insisted on reopening the investigation.
“Given the strength of the belief, at the highest levels, that allegations of hundreds of people killed in Albania after June 1999 are unfounded, it would be in the Government’s best interest to facilitate an independent and objective investigation by one or other of the international entities currently focused on the issue,” said Alston.
He alleged that the government had set a barrier of formal obstacles during the probe and urged Tirana be ready for an independent investigation and offer genuine cooperation.
He also said that he doubted Tirana was ready for that and Meta’s reaction Monday seemed to be a direct response to that.