New information on Kosovo organ harvesting

B92 will continue with its investigative program Reakcija and air new information about the 1999 illegal trade in the organs taken from the Kosovo Serb victims. Tonight at 22:00 CET B92 TV will air video footage from investigations which UNMIK and Hague Tribunal investigators conducted in February 2004 at the so-called yellow house near Burrel in Albania, as well as excerpts from a March 2003 UNMIK report on kidnapped Kosovo Serbs and the trade of their organs. New information on Kosovo organ harvesting The crimes are mentioned in part of an UNMIK report, which B92 reporters had exclusive access to. The report was made a full year before investigators probed the yellow house, where illegal surgeries are believed to have taken place. The report includes witness statements on crimes in the region of Suva Reka and Albania in the summer of 1999. Between July and August 1999, Serb civilians, and in some cases Yugoslav Army (VJ) and police (MUP) members, were kidnapped and transported across the Albanian border. After that, the prisoners were taken to an improvised clinic near Tirana, where their organs were removed and then transported for sale in Turkey. Former Head of the UNMIK Office for Missing Persons Jose Pablo Baraybar speaks in the B92 broadcast for the first time about his meetings with people who witnessed these crimes. “I had already crossed the line when I began to meet with those people, in order to gather information, but the manner of the reaction to that information was not up to me,” he said, adding that the subject of organs trade was not exceptional, but just one more case which was not investigated as it should have been. The B92 team had exclusive access to footage from the February 2004 investigations at the yellow house. In the footage, among other things, the investigators find material evidence, a fact which was earlier denied by the local Albanian prosecutor, Arben Duli. The traces, as was reported in an earlier broadcast, along with thousands of pieces of evidence, were destroyed at the Hague Tribunal. The program tonight will include testimonies by the families of missing Serbs from 1999, who paid huge ransoms in order for their family members to be released from prison camps in Burrel. “Well they asked for it. I said, ‘I’ll give you money, and you give me my son,’” said the mother of kidnapped Dragan Ristic. B92 will also show exclusive footage of buildings where prison camps and so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, training camps were located. Last week, the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution, which is investigating the case, revealed the identity of one of the Serb civilians killed by the KLA in northern Albania in 1999.

New information on Kosovo organ harvesting

The crimes are mentioned in part of an UNMIK report, which B92 reporters had exclusive access to.

The report was made a full year before investigators probed the yellow house, where illegal surgeries are believed to have taken place. The report includes witness statements on crimes in the region of Suva Reka and Albania in the summer of 1999.

Between July and August 1999, Serb civilians, and in some cases Yugoslav Army (VJ) and police (MUP) members, were kidnapped and transported across the Albanian border.

After that, the prisoners were taken to an improvised clinic near Tirana, where their organs were removed and then transported for sale in Turkey.

Former Head of the UNMIK Office for Missing Persons Jose Pablo Baraybar speaks in the B92 broadcast for the first time about his meetings with people who witnessed these crimes.

“I had already crossed the line when I began to meet with those people, in order to gather information, but the manner of the reaction to that information was not up to me,” he said, adding that the subject of organs trade was not exceptional, but just one more case which was not investigated as it should have been.

The B92 team had exclusive access to footage from the February 2004 investigations at the yellow house.

In the footage, among other things, the investigators find material evidence, a fact which was earlier denied by the local Albanian prosecutor, Arben Duli.

The traces, as was reported in an earlier broadcast, along with thousands of pieces of evidence, were destroyed at the Hague Tribunal.

The program tonight will include testimonies by the families of missing Serbs from 1999, who paid huge ransoms in order for their family members to be released from prison camps in Burrel.

“Well they asked for it. I said, ‘I’ll give you money, and you give me my son,’” said the mother of kidnapped Dragan Ristić.

B92 will also show exclusive footage of buildings where prison camps and so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, training camps were located.

Last week, the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution, which is investigating the case, revealed the identity of one of the Serb civilians killed by the KLA in northern Albania in 1999.