US, Europe concealed organ trafficking by Kosovo Liberation Army

[Hannah Bell]

The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been implicated in war crimes involving torture and the illicit trade in human organs, including those removed from Serb civilians taken captive and killed during and after NATO’s 1999 war against Yugoslavia.

The current prime minister of Kosovo and former KLA commander, Hashim Thaci, is identified as the leading figure within a criminal network involved in drug trafficking as well as the trade in human organs. Thaci and other commanders within the “Drenica group” faction of the KLA exercised command control over detention facilities based in neighbouring Albania and determined the fate of those held captive.

A two-year inquiry conducted by the Council of Europe (CoE), the results of which were published earlier this month by the CoE rapporteur Dick Marty, provides details showing that the human organ trade has continued to the present day, with the KLA running Kosovo as a criminal fiefdom.

The Medicus clinic in the Kosovan capital, Pristina, is the subject of criminal proceedings over the trade in human organs. It has been closed down by EULEX (the European Union rule of law mission), which took over aspects of law enforcement from UNMIK (the United Nations Mission in Kosovo) in 2008. A number of individuals, including doctors and a former health ministry official, have been charged with being part of an international criminal network. Health law in Kosovo forbids organ transplantation, but the health secretary granted the centre a licence.

The KLA brought people into Kosovo for the purpose of removing and selling their organs, European Union prosecutor Jonathan Ratel said in the indictment. Some victims came from countries such as Moldova, Turkey and Russia. They were promised up to US$20,000 (€14,500), but the organ recipients were required to pay between US$110,000 and US$137,000 (€80,000 to €100,000).

In his report, Marty did not pull his punches with regard to the wealth of information long in the possession of Western intelligence services regarding Thaci’s criminal activities. He cited records from five countries—Germany, Britain, Italy, Greece and the United States—showing that they all knew of the KLA’s activities and helped conceal them...

In fact, the report exposes the criminal character of the US-NATO war against Yugoslavia and the utterly cynical nature of the propaganda campaign waged to justify it. The air war was presented as a humanitarian campaign against genocide and rape, with the Serbs cast as the villains and the KLA as freedom fighters defending the Albanian Kosovar population.

The CIA and European intelligence agencies backed the KLA and used it as a cat’s paw to facilitate the plans of the US, using NATO as its military umbrella, to complete the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and undermine Serbia, a long-time ally of Russia.



http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/koso-d29.shtml

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/149216/report_alleges_organ_harvesting_ring_linked_to_kosovo_officials

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/kosovo-medicus-organ-clinic

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/kosovo/8202149/Kosovo-physicians-accused-of-organ-trafficking-racket.html


A gang of Kosovan organ traffickers operated an elaborate international network that traded in the organs of people living in extreme poverty, a court heard.

The men, including a former senior Kosovan Health Ministry official, promised poor people from Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey up to €14,500 (£12,300) for their organs.

Those who received the organs – including patients from Canada, Germany, Poland and Israel – paid between €80,000 and €100,000 for them, Ratel said. The victims, however, were never paid, the European Union prosecutor Jonathan Ratel told Pristina District Court.

He alleged that the "organ-harvesting ring" recruited about 20 foreign nationals with false promises of payments in 2008.

The seven men have pleaded not guilty to charges ranging from trafficking in persons to unlawful practices of medicine and abuse of power. Two other suspects, a Turkish and an Israeli national, remain at large.

The prosecution has alleged that Kosovo surgeon Lutfi Dervishi, who is also linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army's alleged kidnapping and killing of Serb civilians for their organs, is the ringleader of the group.

[xchrom]

1. Horrifying. Nt

[snagglepuss]

2. Utterly repugnant. May they all rot in prison. I wonder whether Serbians are

ultimately to blame for destabilizing the area to begin with. Isn't this sort of criminal behaviour one consequence of civil war and complete societal breakdown?

[court jester]

3. repugnant

to blame the invaded. Do you know anything besides what clinton and albright and that horses arse holbrooke said about that clusterf*ck?

There never was any "genocide" in kosovo (that's what UN Inspectors said and the fbi as well)

it was a war based on lies and

it was a PNAC project

here, i did the work for you

http://newamericancentury.org/balkans.htm



funny that on the thread the other day about how some kid was all great for going to play at "our base in kosovo" not a GD single "person" asked why the hell the us has a base in kosovo. I mean even if there was "genocide" which there wasn't, there isn't now and milosovic isn't around anymore.

but there's a 1000 acre base there.




the reason "we" have hundreds and hundreds of bases around the world is because the average american has no idea what is going on and they're dumb enough to believe people like the wife of a state department spokesman when she pretended to "report" (amanpour, anyone?)

Back to sleep!!!!

[snagglepuss]

6. Bullshit. Please site credible sources to suppport your ludicrious

statement that there never was a genocide in Kosovo.

[blindpig]

4. They are the 'good guys'.

That's what we've been told. How much else of what we've been told, stuff that is 'accepted wisdom', is lies?

Those lies pile up to the sky, they are the basis of our society.

[Hannah Bell]

7. k

[DCKit]

5. But NOT young American tourists?

How did someone know enough about what was going on to make a movie of this (Hostel) several years ago? Hell, there's already a sequel.

On Edit:

Oh, and thanks for laying this out so clearly Hannah. You done good.