Russia backs Serbia's call for UN probe in Kosovo organ theft

UNITED NATIONS, May 13 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia backed Serbia's call to
the United Nations to lead a probe into claims that Kosovar rebels
trafficked human organs during the 1998-1999 war for secession.
"We support the call for the Security Council decision to form an
international investigation mechanism subordinated to the United Nations,"
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin told the Security
Council on Thursday adding the investigation team shall have "adequate
means to provide for a reliable program to protect witnesses."
Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic sent a letter to the UN
secretary general on April 19 calling to set up a team of investigators to
look into allegations raised by a Council of Europe investigator that the
now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, which was headed by Prime Minister
Hashim Thaci, harvested human organs after killing Serb captives at the
end of the 1998-99 war. Thaci denied the claims.
The 2010 report by Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty to the Council of
Europe uncovered "credible, convergent indications" that a clinic in
Kosovo was implicated in an illegal trade in human organs going back over
a decade.
Some U.N. Security Council members suggested the European Union should
lead the probe through its Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) which the
Kosovars support.
But Churkin said EULEX is not enough. "We do not understand the
intention of some colleagues in the Security Council to limit the
investigation by the EULEX framework which has never dealt with such
things before," he said.
The ambassador said the UN investigation team should "closely
cooperate" with all interested states, as well as the UN Mission in Kosovo
and the European Union Rule of Law Mission there.
"A thorough, non-politicized and independent investigation will meet
the interests of establishing the truth and reconciliation in the
province," Churkin said adding the international community has no right to
make another mistake in probing human organ trafficking reports in Kosovo.
"It has once overlooked the grave crime. We have no right to make
another mistake," the ambassador said.
The first human organ trafficking allegations were published in a
book by former chief prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte in which she claimed that Kosovo
Albanians smuggled human kidneys of kidnapped Serbs after the Kosovo war
ended in 1999.
Carla Del Ponte concluded that if the case was opened before the
Kosovo Albanian declaration of independence, the international community
would have a different stance on the Kosovo question.