Kosovo organ harvesting tribunal to begin work next year – officials
A long-promised tribunal investigating organ harvesting by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo-Serbia war will be set up next year. The verdicts will be read out in Pristina, but most witnesses will be interviewed in the Netherlands for protection reasons.
The decision was announced by Jonathan Moore, director of the US
State Department's Office of South-Central European Affairs, in
an interview with Kosovo daily Koha Ditore, and was confirmed to
AP by a senior EU official.
“We are asking for a court composed only by internationals
and an appeals panel composed only of internationals,” said
the senior bureaucrat, who did not wish to disclose his name
before Pristina agreed to the conditions. “The procedure has
to be done and has to be done abroad. It’s the only way for it to
be credible.”
The institution of a tribunal follows a landmark 2011 report by
the Council of Europe, and will also use specific findings being
collected by US prosecutor John Clint Williamson, who is
currently in Kosovo to investigate war crimes on behalf of the
EU.
Previous reports show that 10,000 people died during the conflict
between 1998 and 1999, with 1,700 still unaccounted for. Most
alarmingly, more than 400 ethnic Serbs disappeared soon after the
NATO-led intervention, which ostensibly brought an end to the
fighting.
It is suspected that many of them were civilians abducted by
Albanian Kosovars who took them to makeshift labs where they had
their organs harvested and then trafficked abroad and sold.
Western officials are reportedly pushing the Kosovar parliament
to sanction the upcoming tribunal through a vote, saying that
taking official responsibility for these crimes is central to the
acceptance of Kosovo as a legitimate state.
Nonetheless, former guerilla leader and current prime minister of
Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, has vehemently opposed international
participation in the proceedings, insisting on an ethnic
Albanian-staffed court.
Previous attempts to bring Thaci and other guerilla leaders to
trial for other war crimes have failed, not least because of the
deaths of key witnesses in Kosovo and Albania shortly before
hearings were scheduled to begin.
Many in Pristina believe the tribunal will change mainstream
international perception of the war with Serbia, which pitted
Kosovars as the underdogs and primary victims of ethnic
cleansing.
“It’s absurd, it makes no sense,” said Muharrem
Xhemajli, head of the Kosovo Liberation Army veterans
association. “Our war that was supported by the international
community, the United States and all the freedom-loving people is
now being put on trial.”
Belgrade, which has often complained of being vilified by the
international community due to the toxic reputation of
then-leader Slobodan Milosevic, has welcomed the legal process.
“Setting up of the tribunal would present an encouragement
for the victims and their families,” Serbia’s deputy war
crimes prosecutor, Bruno Vekaric, said.
“This is important for reaching justice and for
reconciliation in the region," he added.
