Families of kidnapped and missing insist on UN inquiry

An association of families of kidnapped and missing Serbs in Kosovo is calling for an immediate international investigation into human organs trafficking.

(KosovoCompromiseStuff) Thursday, September 13, 2012

They wish the probe to be conducted at the level of the UN Security Council.

Representatives of the association said they were deeply shaken and shocked by the recorded testimony of a protected witness - an ethnic Albanian and former KLA member who talked about a monstrous crime against an innocent civilian, shown on the public broadcaster on Monday night.

The video footage shows a statement by a protected witness of the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office who was directly involved in the forcible extraction of human organs in Kosovo, and who explains the entire process in detail - from the training, operations in makeshift hospitals, to transport to the airport in Tirana, from where organs were distributed to the black market.

The statement released by the association says that in the victim described in the witness statement, everyone recognized the loved ones they have been looking for since 1998 and that the horrific crime was committed against Serbs and other non-Albanians in the presence of the international community.

"We insist on an immediate international investigation at the level of the UN Security Council," they said in the release, noting that under UNSC Resolution 1244, the UNSC was obligated to act as the guarantor of peace in Kosovo.

"Politics must not be an obstacle in discovering the truth about the kidnappings, disappearances and murders of civilians," says the release.

Serbia's Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekarić explained in a live broadcast that the witness, who had been a member of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), received training in a special camp in Albania.