What was written in Dick Marty's report: KLA leaders organized organ trafficking

Former State Prosecutor of the Ticino canton, Dick Marty, presented to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in December 2010 that there were "concrete and mutually corroborating indications" that a certain number of Serbs and Albanians had been captured and held in secret locations under the control of the KLA, including facilities in northern Albania.

The report - a preliminary draft of the Resolution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights - is titled "Inhumane treatment of people and illegal trafficking of human organs in Kosovo".

The investigation was initiated based on CoE Resolution 11574 which called for a thorough investigation into the actions mentioned in Carla Del Ponte's book and the consequences of those actions, with the intention of determining their credibility, achieving justice for the victims, and arresting the perpetrators of these crimes.

"According to the information gathered by the Assembly, as well as based on the results of the ongoing investigation, there are numerous concrete and mutually corroborating indications confirming that a certain number of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians were captured and held in secret locations in northern Albania, in prison facilities under the control of the KLA. These individuals were subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment before finally disappearing", the report states at the beginning. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted the report in January 2011, leading to negotiations with authorities in Kosovo to establish an ad hoc court, the Specialist Chambers of Kosovo, and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office, based in The Hague.

In the report, Dick Marty states that there are numerous indications that organs were removed from captured Serbs and Albanians, which were later sold abroad.

"Numerous indications likely confirm that, in the period immediately following the end of the armed conflict, before international forces could realistically take control of the region and reestablish some order and law, organs were extracted from some prisoners, which would then be sent abroad for transplantation. The mentioned organ removal took place on the territory of Albania, at a clinic near the town of Fushe-Kruje".

Marty states that this "criminal activity" occurred due to the chaos prevailing in the region, initiated by certain KLA leaders and that it was linked to organized crime, continuing until 2010.

As evidence for this claim, he cited the results of the investigation conducted at that time regarding the operations of the "Medicus" clinic in Pristina.

In the report, Marty noted that despite the existence of "certain concrete evidence" of organ trafficking in the early 2000s, "members of international forces responsible for this region found it inappropriate to examine the mentioned circumstances thoroughly, or did so only partially and superficially".

"Especially during the first years of their presence in Kosovo, international organizations responsible for the security and the rule of law (KFOR and UNMIK) had to confront key structural problems and a serious lack of personnel qualified to perform tasks within their mandate, and the constant rotation of staff further complicated their job", Marty stated.

He explained that representatives of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had conducted the initial investigation but discontinued it after some time.

"The evidence elements found at the Rripe location in Albania were destroyed, rendering them unusable for more detailed analysis. No further investigation was conducted regarding this case, although the former prosecutor of the ICTY considered it significant enough to draw public attention and disclose it in her book", the report adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated.

The report explicitly states that representatives of international organizations in Kosovo did not do much in the investigation for a long time.

"Representatives of international organizations in Kosovo favored a pragmatic political approach, believing that short-term stability should be prioritized at all costs, sacrificing some important principles of justice. Almost nothing was done for a very long time in terms of investigating evidence indicating the potential involvement of KLA members in crimes against the Serbian population and against certain Kosovo Albanians. Immediately after the conflict, effectively at the moment when the KLA had exclusive control on the ground, there were numerous cases of settling scores among different factions, as well as reprisals against individuals who, without any trial, were considered traitors because they were suspected of collaborating with the Serbs or the previous regime".

The report recalls that at the end of 2008, EULEX took over certain functions in the justice sector from UNMIK, including combating serious forms of crime and unfinished reports, as well as lost documents and uncollected testimonies.

"Such a situation could result in a large number of crimes that may go unpunished. Insufficiently investigated or not investigated at all are the connections between organized crime and representatives of political institutions. Also, little or no investigation has been conducted in cases of war crimes committed against the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians considered collaborators or rivals of dominant factions. This last issue remains a true taboo topic in Kosovo to this day, although everyone talks about it – unofficially and very cautiously. It seems that only recently has EULEX made certain progress in this regard, and we sincerely hope that political reasons will not be an obstacle to their work", the report states, adding that EULEX's international team of prosecutors and investigators investigated allegations of inhuman treatment, including potential human organ trafficking and the existence of secret KLA prisons in northern Albania, but they did not encounter readiness for cooperation from Albanian authorities.