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Serbia 'concerned' about pace of Kosovo trafficking probe

06 March 2011, 12:02 CET
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(BELGRADE) - A Serbian war crimes prosecutor is alarmed at the slow pace of an investigation into alleged organ trafficking in neighbouring Kosovo, Blic newspaper reported Sunday.

The European Union rule of law mission (EULEX) in Kosovo "expects proof rather than having to look for it," prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told the paper. "We don't see any activity linked to the investigation and this seriously worries me."

Vukcevic said EULEX had opened a preliminary investigation but added "we prosecutors know that this means nothing".

EULEX said Friday an EU judge in Kosovo had ruled that four people, including a former health official, could be tried on the organ trafficking charges.

The charges revolve around the Medicus Clinic in Pristina, which was shut down in 2008 after a police probe was launched when a young Turkish citizen collapsed at the airport after having a kidney removed for a transplant to an Israeli man.

Among the confirmed suspects the most prominent are former health secretary Ilir Rrecaj, who had issued a licence to the clinic although Kosovo law forbids organ transplants, and Lufti Dervishi, a prominent Pristina urologist.

Another suspect is Turkish doctor Yusuf Sonmez, dubbed the Turkish Frankenstein by Kosovo media, who was briefly held in Turkey at the request of the Kosovo authorities in January.

But the judge of EULEX, who has been looking into the case for a few months, said "the indictment was returned" to the prosecution in order "to specify some factual details regarding two further defendants."

Vukcevic said the investigation could not start until the United Nations had decided which international body would carry out the probe.

But he added: "Finances are a much bigger problem than who will eventually carry out the probe; the key question is who will finance the investigation."

Vukcevic wants his former UN counterpart Carla del Ponte to get involved in the trafficking claims.

Del Ponte has said she was "personally tempted to take on the Kosovo investigations."

Belgrade backs an independent probe with a UN mandate, arguing that EULEX has no mandate to investigate outside its former province.

A Council of Europe report has alleged that Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci and other senior commanders of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas were involved in organised crime and organ trafficking during and after the 1998-99 war with Serbia.

Thaci has denied the allegations, calling them a smear campaign against the guerrillas and himself.

The 3,000-member EULEX was launched in December 2008 to enforce the rule of law in Kosovo and supervise its police, customs and judiciary.

EULEX has the power to step in and take on cases that the local judiciary and police are unable to handle because of their sensitive nature.


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