Renowned American newspaper writes about Albanian parliament resolution against Martyt

Parliament voted by 125 votes last night in favour of a motion urging the Council of Europe to clear Albania and Kosovo of organ trafficking claims.

Supporters of this resolution said such an act would help normalise relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

This issue (organ collection claims) must be concluded sometime, in order for people to find the power to reconcile and live together, healing the wounds of the past,” said in the resolution.

In 2011, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution demanding a European Union mission to Kosovo to investigate “war crimes and organ trafficking” in Kosovo and Albania. He cited claims that the already disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army fighters trafficked human organs taken from prisoners, Serbs killed and other ethnic Albanians in both Kosovo and Albania.

Numerous “Indicacies seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict, before international forces were really able to take control of the region and restore a view of the order and law, organs were removed from several prisoners at a clinic on Albanian territory ... and taken abroad for transplanting”, the resolution said.

The resolution was based on a 2010 report by Swiss Senator Dick Marty, a Council of Europe investigator who said the KLA was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Serbs, Roma and ethnic Albanians suspected of co-operation with Serbs during 1998-1999 in Kosovo.

The KLA fought Serbia's forces in an effort to gain Kosovo's independence, then a Serbian province.

Marty's report also concluded that there were cases in which some captives were killed to sell their organs on the international black market. A “yellow house” in a northern Albanian neighbourhood was believed to serve as a organ collection clinic and attracted international media attention.

After a two-and-a-half-year investigation, a European Union special prosecutor in 2014 said there were <x0convincing” that up to 10 prisoners were killed to take their organs for illegal trafficking and sale to the black market during the war.

However, the prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to accuse someone of alleged crimes.

The motion adopted by Albanian lawmakers said claims in Marty's report remained untested and groundless on evidence and facts, and should therefore be considered such by national and international institutions.

The report was also the basis for a change in the Kosovo Constitution that created a special court to prosecute former KLA war crimes leaders.

An EU-backed war crimes court, Kosovo Specialised Chambers and a headquarters-related office in The Hague has arrested five former KLA leaders since 2020, including former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and former Parliament Speaker Kadri Veselin. They have denied wrongdoing. Only one of the five defendants has been tried.

More than 13,000 people, mainly ethnic Albanians, died during the war between the KLA and Serb military forces before a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw its troops and to hand over control to the United Nations and NATO.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. The United States and most of the West recognise it as a country, but Serbia is supported by allies Russia and China, no.

Source Layer: Washington Post