Albania urged not to obstruct organ-farming probe

...A UN official has urged Albania to stop hampering efforts to investigate claims that hundreds of Serbs were tortured and murdered for their organs in the country during the Kosovo war.

Belgrade says the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) abducted up to 500 Serb civilians and took them to neighbouring Albania for organ removal during the 1998-9 conflict with Slobodan Milosevic’s forces.

The allegations were first made public in a memoir by Carla Del Ponte, the former chief UN war crimes prosecutor, who said her office had received information about a possible Albanian trafficking network selling human organs abroad for transplanting.

She wrote that her colleagues did not find enough evidence to proceed with the case, but Serbia has demanded an inquiry, and advocacy group Human Rights Watch has reviewed the information referred to by Ms Del Ponte and said it merits investigation....