New investigation: EX-KOSOVO OFFICIALS 'PROBED FOR ORGAN TRAFFICKING'

[Baluarte]

PRISTINA (AFP) - A former Kosovo health minister and another Pristina official are among eight suspects in a new EU probe into a human organ trafficking case, a local daily reported Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, a day after a European Union-led court in Kosovo convicted five doctors of harvesting and selling kidneys at a Pristina clinic, the EU's Pristina mission announced the new probe without revealing the identity of the suspects.

It said they were under investigation for "organised crime, trafficking in persons, grievous bodily harm, abusing official position of authority, fraud and trading in influence".

Alush Gashi, a former health minister, and Shaip Muja, who advised the Kosovo prime minister on health issues, are among the suspects, the Koha Ditore daily reported Tuesday, quoting anonymous sources from the EU prosecutor's office.

The suspects "are expected to be charged very soon", the paper said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for EULEX, the EU mission in Pristina, could neither confirm nor deny the Koha Ditore report.

"The case is being investigated. It is just the beginning. EULEX does not want to confirm or deny the (published) names of the suspects in this case," spokesman Blerim Krasniqi told AFP.

The eight are suspected of using their influence to cover up the case in which around 30 illegal kidney removals and transplants were carried out at the Medicus clinic in Pristina in 2008, the daily said.

The donors were recruited from poor eastern European and Central Asian countries and promised about 15,000 euros ($20,000) for their organs. The recipients, mainly Israelis, would pay up to 100,000 euros each.

Gashi and Muja joined Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's government following 2007 parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, Muja, commenting on the Koha Ditore report, said his conscience was clear.

"I'm not hiding from these things. I sleep in peace, because I know who I am," he told reporters.

The five doctors convicted in late April included the owner of the Medicus clinic and prominent Pristina urologist Lutfi Dervishi and his son Arban. Of the five, Dervishi received the harshest sentence of eight years in jail.

EULEX was set up to help the local judiciary handle sensitive cases after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

[Kastrioti1443]

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[Baluarte]

“U.S. supports organ trafficking probe in Kosovo”

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker says the U.S. fully supports the investigation into organ trafficking in Kosovo

He added that it would be long and complex.

During a meeting of the U.S. Congress Helsinki committee that focused on the situation in Albania, he replied to congressmen's questions, one of which referred to the case of the so-called Yellow house, where organs were taken from captive Serbs.

“The U.S. takes seriously all accusations of war crimes and supports in full the investigation into the claims made in the report by Council of Europe Rapporteur Dick Marty,” Reeker noted.

“The accusations involve crimes older than a decade, and it is going to be a long and complex inquiry,” he pointed out, adding he was pleased that U.S. prosecutor Clint Williamson was leading the probe, since he had experience in that field.

“The investigation has already made good progress, because evidence has been collected,” he remarked but refused to predict the outcome.

Reeker commended the authorities in Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and the region on their cooperation regarding the issue.

Carla Del Ponte, a former Hague Tribunal Chief Prosecutor, disclosed the Yellow House case in her book "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals" in March 2008, only after leaving the office.

She noted that the Hague Tribunal investigators and UNMIK officials obtained the information that in the summer of 1999, Kosovo Albanians transported in trucks over 300 abducted and captured civilians, mainly Serbs and a small number of Roma and Albanians, to Burrel, whom they executed, and sold their organs abroad via the airport in Tirana.

However, all eight witnesses mentioned by Del Ponte went missing and the evidence collected by UN investigators was destroyed in the Hague Tribunal in 2005, as the probe was not launched.

Marty published his report on these crimes in December 2010, placing the blame for these crimes on members of the (Albanian paramilitary forces) Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its commanders, including Kosovo's incumbent Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.