Thaci won't be indicted for organ trafficking - daily

Thaci won't be indicted for organ trafficking - daily

"There is no evidence of trafficking in human organs in Kosovo, nor of organized crime and command responsibility of the central headquarters of the former Kosovo Liberation Army," the report to be presented next week by Clint Williamson will say, according to the article.

Williamson is an American prosecutor heading EU's special investigation team.

The newspaper is quoting unnamed diplomatic sources in Brussels to further write that Williamson's team, however, found sufficient evidence to indict "six to ten" former KLA members with war crimes committed against Serb civilians.

As specified, these crimes are related to the area of ​​Lake Radonić, Klečka, Zočište, and Belaćevac. "Several suspects have been highly ranked on the political scene in Kosovo, and the charges were previously raised against them," according to the sources.

Further, they said that "in the context of a lack of evidence about organ trafficking, it is considered that this specific part of the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Dick Marty, on the basis of which an investigation has been launched by Williamson, was very slim."

Marty in 2010 published a report abour his investigation into the allegations that in 1999 and 2000, the ethnic Albanian KLA kidnapped and illegally imprisoned mostly Serb civilians, and sold their body parts in the black market. These atrocities were first mentioned in a book published in 2008 by former Chief Hague Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

The daily Danas writes on Wednesday that Williamson's report will also mean that no command responsibility of the KLA leaders has been established - meaning that one of them, now Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, will not be indicted.

The newspaper further said that it learned the EU will allocate about EUR 300 million for a special court for war crimes in Kosovo, which will begin operations next year.

"The court will function in accordance with the Kosovo Constitution and laws, but with international conducting of proceedings in a special court department in The Hague, and parliaments of Kosovo and Holland must first give permission for it. It is anticipated that it will employ about 150 foreign judges, prosecutors, professionals, investigators, and the trials should be completed by 2020, " said the diplomatic sources.

Williamson was in Priština on Monday and in Belgrade on Tuesday, where he met Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. Vučić said after the meeting that the report would be "of huge importance for Serbia" and also verify the objectivity of the institutions of the European Union and the international community.

However, neither he nor Williamson spoke about the results of the investigation. Williamson would not comment on reports in the Albanian language media in Priština that no evidence was found of organ trafficking, and that former leaders of the KLA would not be indicted.

Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević also spoke yesterday to say his office "gathered sufficient evidence that there were war crimes but did not reach the individuals who executed them" and would now have to decide on whether to raise indictments or abandon the case.

Commenting on Williamson's visit, Faculty of Political Sciences professor Predrag Simić said its goal was to "soften the political consequences that his report will undoubtedly bring to the region."

"He is setting the stage for what will follow. However, I think that the report will be 'politically correct' and that it will not contain the names of high-ranking officials, but a dozen junior officers of the KLA. It will not meet the expectations of Belgrade and that is likely the reason he visited the Serbian capital," this analyst said, adding that there were "known cases of trafficking in human organs in Kosovo" - something that Dick Marty "spoke openly about."