UN Security Council to hold session on Kosovo Monday

In the report for the period between October 16 and January 20, Ban said that the year 2013 was a year of significant progress in the political aspect which culminated with the agreement signed under the EU auspices in Brussels on April 29, stressing that in 2014, efforts must continue to consolidate the critical achievements of the past year in the dialogue and along the path toward regional reconciliation, stability and prosperity. The Secretary General said that the local elections in Kosovo, including the north, were successful, stressing that this has opened space for new political dynamics within Kosovo. The substantial progress achieved in the transition of the police structures in northern Kosovo should be matched by early progress on the related issue of judiciary and other rule of law areas, the UN secretary general said and called upon all sides to sustain maximum flexibility and mutual accommodation in their approach to further implementation. Attached to Ban's report was a report by EULEX Mission Chief Bernd Borhart referring to the human organ trafficking investigation in Kosovo. Considerable progress has been achieved in the human organ trafficking investigation in Kosovo, Borhart said, adding that the team headed by John Clint Williamson is cooperating with the EU authorities and judiciary bodies in the region on solving the case. The report states that cooperation was achieved with victims, groups representing the damaged parties and individuals who could provide information relevant to the ongoing investigation. Prosecutor John Clint Williamson will continue to cooperate with EU governments so as to ensure the necessary conditions for his team to complete an independent and professional investigation, reads the report. The details pertaining to the organ trafficking performed by former paramilitary formations of ethnic Albanians, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, were disclosed by Council of Europe special rapporteur Dick Marty in his report presented on December 12, 2010. In the report, Marty identified the Drenica Group and several former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, including acting Prime Minister of Kosovo Hasim Taci, as the organizers of criminal activities and persons accountable for kidnapping and murder of a few hundred civilians. Marty said that the kidnapped civilians were transferred to Albania, where their organs were harvested in improvised hospitals, such as the Yellow House, and then sold at the black market. Former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte also wrote about the organ trafficking in her book 'The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals' which she released upon termination of office. Del Ponte said that she learnt in 1999 that around 300 Serbs, Roma and disloyal Albanians from Kosovo were kidnapped and transported to Albania where their organs were extracted, after which these were sent to Italy and then distributed to clinics around Europe.