Serbia’s War Crimes prosecution receives new UN documents on organ trafficking
The Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office has received another part of UN documents with photographs where possible locations of mass graves in northern Albania are marked, spokesman for the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office Bruno Vekaric said on Tuesday.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The photographs were made by UN investigators in 2004 and they contain the markings of possible locations of mass graves which might contain the bodies of Serbs and other non-Albanians who had been kidnapped in Kosovo and became the victims of trafficking in human organs, Vekaric said.
According to these leads, it is suspected that a mass grave is situated 1.5 km away from what is referred to as the "yellow house" near the village of Burel.
The "yellow house," which was painted into another colour in the meantime, is suspected to be the hospital where organs of Serbs and other non-Albanians had been removed.
"The number of people kidnapped in Kosovo matches the number of the ill who were brought there. It seems to us that these people might be the recipients of organs and people kidnapped from Kosovo donors," Vekaric said.
He said that the Albanian Prosecutor's Office had refused to cooperate with Serbian prosecutors in the investigation into the suspected trafficking in human organs and denied the existence of graves.
Council of Europe special envoy Dick Marty, who should investigate suspicions regarding the trade of human organs in northern Albania, is expected to arrive in January.
The Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office launched the investigation into the trafficking of human organs in northern Albania in mid-2008, after the publication of a book by former ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, which publicised these suspicions for the first time.
