CE Deputy: Govts Knew of Kosovo Organ Harvesting

Swiss lawmaker and Council of Europe member Dick Marty is working in a office room at the Federal Assembly in Bern, Switzerland. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Foreign governments were aware of criminal organ harvesting carried out in Kosovo, stated Swiss Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly representative Dick Marty.

Speaking to Serbian newspaper Novosti, Dick Marty said he has personally seen intelligence services reports informing on the alleged activities of extracting organs from unwilling persons, frequently of Serbian origin, in order to sell them on the black market.

"Governments were quite uncomfortable to read those reports," stated Marty, who has recently produced a report on organ harvesting in Kosovo, which implicates PM Hashim Thaci as ringleading the organized criminal process.

The report was adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last week by a broad 2/3 majority.

"Numerous indications seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict, organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fush?-Kruje, to be taken abroad for transplantation," reads the report.

Thaci has already filed a claim against Marty for libel.

In the Novosti interview, Marty said that the Council of Europe is to vote January on a resolution calling for judicial action regarding the matter. He said he expected that judicial authorities in the relevant countries, including Serbia, will take due action.

The Swiss Council of Europe deputy also expressed concern about the safety of witnesses of the criminal activities, specifying that already "there have been many murders."

Marty also expressed some surprise that the Council of Europe report has provoked such strong reactions, given that similar information had been provided by International Court of Justice prosecutor Karla del Ponte as long as two years ago.

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