Carla del Ponte, former chief prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal, says she is ready to take on an independent investigation into allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo.
An internal UN document from 2003 shows that investigators obtained statements from KLA members which describe human organ harvesting by the Kosovo Army in Albania.
Swiss MP Dick Marty says that the EU mission in Kosovo, EULEX, cannot effectively investigate allegations of organ trafficking in the country and calls for the creation of an independent body.
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly has adopted a resolution on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo and called for an investigation into the claims.
MPs in the Council of Europe have expressed their support for a report on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo, and have called for a probe into the claims.
Serbia's delegation to the Council of Europe hopes that a report on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo will be adopted in Strasbourg on Tuesday, paving the way for a probe into the claims.
If a report on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo is adopted today by the Council of Europe, both Kosovo and Albania are likely to feel the repercussions.
The Council of Europe has begun debate on allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo, and officials in Pristina, Belgrade and Tirana are anxiously awaiting the outcome.
Macedonia’s junior ruling party is lobbying against a Council of Europe report that alleges that a criminal network linked to Kosovo Premier Hashim Thaci executed prisoners and harvested their kidneys.
Xhavit Haliti says Council of Europe report relies on biased sources and probes will draw a blank.
Human Rights Watch has called for the appointment of an independent, senior prosecutor to investigate allegations that top Kosovo officials were part of a criminal network that sold body parts, carried out assassinations and dealt drugs.
Serbia's deputy prime minister told the Council of Europe's secretary general in Strasbourg that Belgrade did not want to politicise a recent report containing allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo.
Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty, who alleged in a recent report that Kosovo officials were involved in organ trafficking, says he did not claim that Prime Minister Thaci himself was directly involved.
Kosovo and Albania's top prosecutors have agreed to create a joint strategy for a possible investigation into allegations that top Kosovo officials were part of an organised crime network that trafficked organs.
A delegation from the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo is due to meet with Albania’s general prosecutor over allegations made by a Council of Europe rapporteur that top Kosovo officials were part of an organised crime network that trafficked organs.
Background
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.