After five men were convicted of involvement in the illegal trading of human organs from a Kosovo clinic, EU prosecutors said they were investigating eight new suspects.
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A Kosovo court has convicted five men of participating in an illegal organ-trading ring that harvested and sold human kidneys at the Medicus clinic near Pristina.
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The EU said its investigation into allegations that Kosovo Liberation Army fighters harvested and sold prisoners’ organs during the late 1990s conflict will be completed next year.
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As the trial of alleged members of an illegal kidney-trading ring in Kosovo nears its end, it emerged that the Medicus clinic at the centre of the charges has been sold.
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Lutfi Dervishi, accused of being the leader of an illegal kidney-trading ring at Kosovo’s Medicus clinic, told his trial that he had never been part of a criminal plot.
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Medicus case EULEX prosecutor Jonathan Ratel said the traffickers were “well structured and acted in concert”, recalling that transplants were carried out without an official license.
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In his final statement, Medicus case EULEX prosecutor Jonathan Ratel displayed evidence of an alleged international organ trafficking network, saying illegal transplants undoubtedly took place in the clinic.
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Two assistant anaesthetists at a Kosovo clinic accused of illegal kidney-trading said they took part in organ transplants but did not know the operations were illegal.
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A former anaesthetist at a Kosovo clinic accused of illegal kidney-trading confirmed that transplants were carried out at the clinic, but said he was not aware it had no license.
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A former senior health ministry official has denied misusing his position by signing a license for a Kosovo clinic where illegal kidney-trading is alleged to have taken place in 2008.
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One of the defendants in the trial for alleged illicit kidney-trading at Kosovo’s Medicus clinic pleaded guilty to illegal medical activity while another declared he was innocent.
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Renowned Serbian film director Emir Kusturica has announced that his new movie will deal with human organ trafficking, the focus of a current high-profile trial in Kosovo.
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The prosecution at the trial for alleged illicit kidney-trading at Kosovo’s Medicus clinic has made new allegations of grievous bodily harm and fraud against the defendants.
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The prosecution said fresh charges should be brought because "appalling" new evidence had emerged during the trial for alleged illicit kidney-trading at a Kosovo clinic.
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A handwriting expert told the high-profile Kosovo organ-trafficking trial that scientific analysis proved that a Pristina clinic owner and his son had agreed illicit kidney operations.
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Kosovo's Organ-Harvesting Controversy
Here is a sequence of events leading up to the organ-trafficking charges in Kosovo and the release of the Council of Europe report.
Fatmir Limaj, Kosovo's Road-Builder
Corruption allegations have not dented the popularity of the KLA- fighter-turned-PDK politician who has made it his mission to transform the country’s traffic arteries.
KLA : From Guerilla Wars to Party Plenums
The Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, was an ethnic Albanian guerrilla group that came to the fore in the mid-1990s, demanding the unification of Albanian territories in former Yugoslavia with Albania.
KLA Ran Torture Camps in Albania
The Kosovo Liberation Army maintained a network of prisons in their bases in Albania and Kosovo during and after the conflict of 1999, eyewitnesses allege. Only now are the details of what occurred there emerging.
Hashim Thaci 'From 'Snake' to Prime Minister
Thaci, born in 1968, joined the Albanian independence cause as a student, becoming one of the leaders of the protest movement in the early 1990s. As the Serbian crackdown intensified, he left for Switzerland, studying history and international relations in Zurich.
The Drenica Group
Crime gang allegedly headed by Prime Minister Thaci is said to have run a range of mafia-like enterprises, from cigarette smuggling to trafficking in organs.