Albanian witnesses on human organ trade

They also explained how they buried hundreds of victims to hide evidence of civilian killings.

The 30-page compilation of statements by at least eight people to UN investigators could provide momentum to claims that the world body failed to pay proper attention to war crimes by ethnic Albanians in their 1990s war for independence, the AP writes.

The UN authorities briefly investigated organ harvesting claims in 2004 but never launched a full-fledged probe, prompting Serb accusations of double standards in pursuing war crimes.

The document outlines an alleged "scheme to take captives" of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to Albania in the aftermath of the war in 2000 so their kidneys, livers and other organs could be removed at a home that had been set up as a medical clinic, the AP reports.

The UN officials were told the home was equipped with specialized equipment and medical personnel to carry out operations.

In December 2003 Paul Coffey, the top justice official in Kosovo at the time, wrote to Jonathan Sutch, the official in charge of Yugoslav tribunal investigations in Kosovo, that the alleged crimes were reported to the UN in Kosovo by "multiple sources of unknown reliability."

Coffey said the information was "based on interviews with at least eight sources, the credibility of whom is untested, all ethnic Albanians from Kosovo or Montenegro who served in the KLA."

Details of the interviews were more than seven years ago presented to the Hague Tribunal that was then responsible for prosecuting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. "No one has been brought to trial," the AP pointed out.

The interviews were made available to the AP by an international official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the case.

One of the sources is quoted as telling investigators that the first two surgeries to harvest organs were done "to breach the market," and that traffickers later were able to make up to USD 45,000 per body.

"The largest shipment was when they did 5 Serbs together. ... He said they took a fortune that time," the source said according to the document.

"Other shipments were usually from two or three Serbs," he said.

The source told investigators that workers at the Rinas airport outside Tirana and at the airport in Istanbul, where the organs were allegedly taken for sale, were bribed "to close their eyes."

The flight between the two cities takes about 1 hour 45 minutes, sources told the UN, adding that the house where the organs were allegedly harvested was a two-hour drive from the airport.

If packed in ice after removal, organs are viable for several hours after extraction - hearts and lungs for four-six hours, livers for 18-24 hours, kidneys for 24-48 hours.

Two sources claimed they took part in delivering body parts to Tirana's international airport.

They appear to confirm allegations made by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty, who said in a recent report that Western governments ignored the accusations out of fear of destabilizing Kosovo.

The investigators found pieces of medical equipment, medicine boxes and blood traces.

One source said he was instructed by KLA superiors not to beat the prisoners and that he became suspicious when they were to deliver "a briefcase or a file with papers that would be given to the doctor when the captives were delivered" to the house in northern Albania.

He said that he used to bring prisoners there but never drove any of them back.