EULEX not rejecting possibility to open investigation on organ trafficking
The European Union Mission in Kosovo EULEX has not rejected the possibility of opening an investigation into allegations on trafficking in organs of Kosovo Serbs who were abducted during and after the 1999 conflicts, after which their organs were harvested in the northern Albanian city of Burrel, Radio Free Europe has reported.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, April 01, 2009
These allegations were presented in public for the first time in a book by former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Carla del Ponte. In the book, she said her office had serious knowledge, during an investigation into crimes committed against Serbs, Roma and other ethnic communities by the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) in 1999, that at least 300 persons kidnapped in Kosovo were taken to northern Albania, where their organs were harvested and subsequently sold on the black market.
EULEX Justice Component Head Alberto Perduca could not state in concrete terms whether the EULEX will open an investigation into these suspected crimes committed in what has come to be known as the yellow house in Burrel.
War crimes are within the jurisdiction of the EULEX, the office of the special prosecutor, he said. Whenever there is grounds to open an investigation, the EULEX prosecutors will act accordingly, said Perduca, pointing out that every investigation is confidential.
