Albanians block EU organ harvest probe

Albanians block EU organ harvest probe
Aug 12, 2009

The European Union (EU)’s efforts to probe the Serb allegations that Serb civilians had been kidnapped in Kosovo in 1999, taken to Albania and had organs removed ran into obstacles in Albania where angry local people blocked the investigation, local media reported Tuesday.

A family in northern Albania on Monday refused to meet the Council of Europe team to investigate the Serb allegations that their house had been used as a makeshift clinic to harvest organs from Serbs abducted during the 1999 conflict between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

The family from the village of Rripe in the northern Mat region said that they had never harmed anyone and that their reputation had been tarnished by the allegations.

Television footage from the village of Rripe showed angry villagers blocking the visitors in a standoff.

Previously, UN investigators searched the family’s house in 2004 for evidence of organ harvesting. They found blood stains, gauze and syringes, which the family claimed were left-over from a family birth. The case was then dropped for lack of evidence.

The allegations resurfaced last year when Carla Del Ponte, the former chief United Nations prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, claimed that in the closing days of the Kosovo conflict, hundreds of civilians were reportedly kidnapped by Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas and transported to neighboring Albania.

In his book, “The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals,” Ponte said that dozens of Serb civilians were killed and their organs harvested to be sold abroad. The victims included Serbs, Russians, and at least one Albanian.

The Albanians have vehemently denied the claims. Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha last year denounced the allegations as “fabrications and absurdities ,” saying they were intended to smear the image of Kosovo and Albania.

August 11, 2009
Xinhua