Albania 'Willing to Cooperate' in Organ Trade Case

| 09 March 2010 | Bojana Barlovac

Albania FM Ilir Meta

Albanian Foreign Minister Ilir Meta has announced that his country is willing to cooperate with international institutions on the organ trafficking investigation.

In an interview with the Albanian news agency ATA, Meta said that the country's government "has cooperated closely and without restraint with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, especially with the investigative team that visited Albania in 2003 to look into the allegations, which proved to be unfounded."

However, UN Rapporteur on Human Rights, Philip Alston, after ending his Albania trip in late February this year, accused the Albanian government of stalling an independent investigation into allegations that ethnic Albanian fighters killed and then trafficked the organs of Serbs captured in the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

Meta described the allegations as lacking evidence, but added that the Albanian government is determined to complete the process "once and for all".

Based on the evidence and testimonies of more than 130 witnesses collected by Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, Serbia earlier requested an investigation into allegations that ethnic Albanian fighters kidnapped up to 400 Serbs in Kosovo and killed them in Albania in order to sell their organs on the black market.

The claims surfaced in the memoirs of the former chief prosecutor of the ITCY, Carla Del Ponte.

Tirana rejected Serbia's request last year but the allegations prompted the Council of Europe to mandate a former Swiss prosecutor, Dick Marty, to open an investigation. Marty is currently leading the probe into the case.

For more information, please see: Albania ‘Stalling’ Probe into Organ Trade Claims

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Comments:

Turning a blind eye, again?
2010-03-09 16:54:29

Not sure myself who would be punished - if at all - if the case regarding organ trafficking (sorry, I mean prisoner execution and organ harvesting for cash) is proved. After all, the West turned a blind eye to Albania hosting al Quaeda terror training camping in the late 1990's, including Clinton and Bush. When George W. Bush visited Albania near the end of his Presidency and lost his wristwatch to a crafty thief, it was less reported that the US was at that time donating Army surplus APC's and other equipment to Albania, presumeably to help boost war mongering. Good move, Bush! It just confirms general US and world opinion about him and why it was inevitable that Obama had to get in to clean up his mess.

Guilty as Sin
2010-03-09 22:19:11

Nearly 10 years on most of the evidence has been destroyed! But knowing how the albanians dispose of their trash (in the back yard in a mammoth pile or on the side of a nearby hill) there still may be some evidence around. I sincerely hope that answers to this investigation can be found there.

Only servs
2010-03-10 17:36:23

Only serbs can try to ethnically cleanse 2 million people (in Kosovo) and on top of that call them criminals.

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Albania 'Willing to Cooperate' in Organ Trade Case