Moscow responds to claims about trafficking probe

EULEX special prosecutor Jonathan Ratel recently accused Russia of interfering with the most important international investigation into organ trafficking in Europe by ignoring EULEX's requests to forward the evidence in its possession in relation to the case of the Medicus clinic in Pristina. The Russian Federation attributes great importance to a full and comprehensive investigation into the illegal removal and transplantation of organs in Kosovo. Russian judicial bodies have launched criminal proceedings and the inquiry is ongoing, said the Ministry according to Russian news agency Itar-tass. According to the Ministry's release, the concrete parameters of the cooperation are defined by the Russian law on criminal proceedings, and the most important condition for this type of international cooperation is ensuring the safety of the people involved in the case. French daily Le Monde writes that Russia is ignoring EULEX's demands for two reasons, the first of a legal nature - Moscow does not want to cooperate with a state it does not recognize. The second is political - Russia is keeping valuable information about Medicus to itself in order to use them to exert pressure at an opportune moment, writes Le Monde. In December 2010, Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty published a report on trafficking in human organs, organized by members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1999 conflict and later. Marty tied the traffickers with the Medicus clinic, but EULEX investigators say there is no evidence to support this. Serbia's Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said the Serbian Prosecutor's Office was acting as an intermediary between Russia and EULEX in the collection of evidence about organ trafficking and illegal transplants that took place in Kosovo. He also noted that the disagreement between Russia and EULEX is not new, as even Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the work of the EULEX team. "The essence of the matter is political - Russia does not recognize Kosovo," said Vekaric, noting that the Russians are assisting in the inquiry through Serbian state bodies. He said Serbian bodies have access to the Russians' information, meaning the statements of several witnesses, Russian citizens who were victims of the organ transplant scheme at Medicus and are being investigated by Ratel. "What is important to us is that this story is tied to the Yellow House," Vekaric said referring to a site in northern Albania where organs were harvested from kidnapped Serbs.