EULEX: No Evidence KLA Trafficked Organs

EULEX officers

Accusations that the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, was involved in organ trafficking from the so-called “Yellow House” in Albania are not supported by evidence, Matti Raatikainen, chief of war crimes investigations at EULEX, said.

The allegations, which first surfaced in the book Madame Prosecutor, by Carla del Ponte, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, are arguably the most shocking ever levelled at the KLA.

Del Ponte’s book says that that the KLA might have kidnapped several hundred civilians in Kosovo in 1999 and taken them to northern Albania, some of whom were sent to Burrel and had their organs harvested.

Last year EULEX revealed it was looking into the claims, but speaking to Balkan Insight, Raatikainen said enquiries by the EU rule-of-law mission had uncovered no evidence to back them up.

“We have investigated the Yellow House case but to date our prosecutors have found absolutely no evidence or intelligence that would lead us to believe this happened,” he said. “We followed the clues but no evidence or intelligence about this case ever materialised.”

He added that while the case was not closed, it was no longer a priority: “Of about 900 cases we inherited from UNMIK, we are working on about 60, as this is what we have capacities for.

“We have prioritised them mainly on the seriousness of the case. Out of these are 50 cases in which there are more than 10 victims.”

He said that looking at all the war crimes cases in Kosovo, 70 per cent of the victims were Albanians, 25 per cent Serbs and the remaining 5 per cent involved Roma and other ethnic groups.

The case has gained further traction internationally over the past year following claims by the Serbian war crime prosecutor’s office that it has evidence of organ trafficking, and the launch of an investigation into the matter by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator representing the Council of Europe.

Balkan Insight understands that EULEX’s war crime unit has asked to see the evidence held by the Serbian prosecutor but has received no positive answer. This is in contrast to other investigations by EULEX in which Belgrade officials have helped with witnesses and evidence.

According to a EULEX source an organ harvesting operation would have required sophisticated logistics beyond what a small farmhouse in remote northern Albania could have provided.

In 2003, an UNMIK and ICTY mission visited a house 40 minutes from the village of Rribe to investigate the allegations that organs from Serbs abducted from Kosovo had been “harvested” there.
 
The inquiry did not proceed further, in spite of which it remains a hot political issue between Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.
 
Kosovo and Albanian authorities argue that the investigation never got went anywhere because the allegations were unfounded, “cooked up by Belgrade” to undermine the legitimacy of Kosovo’s war for independence.
 
In Belgrade, officials have continued to highlight the claims, portraying them as proof that the Albanian guerrilla war waged against Serbia was a criminal enterprise.