Serbia vowed Monday to launch a major diplomatic offensive to press for a probe into allegations in a Council of Europe report of organ trafficking in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 conflict.

Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s minister in charge of cooperation with the Hague-based UN war crimes court, said the diplomatic push would be made “in all international forums” in order to ensure the opening of an investigation.

“It is important to move in the field of justice, without any politicisation,” he told B92 radio. “It is important that EULEX (the European Union police and justice mission in Kosovo) take the responsibility to lead this probe.”

The report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty released last week implicated Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), in human organ-trafficking.

It said Thaci headed a KLA faction which controlled secret detention centres in Albania where the organ trafficking is alleged to have taken place in the aftermath of the 1998-99 conflict between the guerrillas and Serbian forces.

Thaci, whose government declared Kosovo’s unilateral independence from Serbia in February 2008, denied the allegations and slammed them as a smear campaign against the KLA which fought the troops of then Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Serbian President Boris Tadic welcomed the Council of Europe report, saying it provided long overdue recognition of organ trafficking.

“Serbia has been waiting for such a report for years from international institutions,” he was quoted as saying by the Beta news agency.

“We have called for all crimes to be solved but these calls have not been taken seriously for decades. Now the picture is different and I thank Dick Marty,” he said.

Ljajic was to leave for Strasbourg later in the day to discuss with Council of Europe officials further steps in the wake of the report.

“Serbia demands only one thing, that the whole truth over those accusations is established and of course justice is done. That is a precondition for reconciliation in the region,” Ljajic said.

Separately, Serbian ombudsman Sasa Jankovic sent a letter to his Albanian counterpart Florina Nina asking her to support the opening of an independent probe into the facts in Marty’s report.

The European parliament’s special rapporteur for Serbia, Jelko Kacin, openly backed a probe of the organ-trafficking allegations during his visit to Belgrade.

“That should be examined as soon as possible,” Kacin said, according to the Beta news agency.

“It is necessary that all the facts be illuminated and the truth determined because those are serious accusations,” Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said after meeting Kacin.

December 20, 2010
AFP

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