GlobalResearch.ca has the story:
Kosovo: West Obstructs Trial Over Murder-For-Organs Crimes
Trial over Human Organs Business in Kosovo
by Pyotr Iskenerov
Evidence in the case being absolutely convincing, chances are still slim that the trial held in Pristina and supervised by the EU would help Serbia or Kosovo Serbs some day see justice prevail. The likelier outcome is that, as when the International Court of Justice rolled out an advisory opinion on the unilateral proclamation of Kosovo’s independence, the verdict resulting from the trial underway in Kosovo will exemplify the deep crisis into which the architects of the new world order have thrown the system of international law as a whole.
Dick Marty who, as the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] special rapporteur, submitted in late 2010 an explosive report on the grisly crimes committed by Kosovo separatists, spoke for the fist time in Pristina at the trial unfolding over illicit human organ business in the province. The scope of the inquiry, which opened in the summer of 2011, so far remains confined to the Medicus clinic which was shut down in 2008 after the EU and a number of international organizations became aware of kidney extractions secretly performed at the facility. Crucially in the context, Dick Marty says there are serious reasons to believe that the illicit human organ business in Kosovo was at full swing already in the late 1990s, much earlier than the information surfaced and the scandal erupted.
Evidence in the case being absolutely convincing, chances are still slim that the trial held in Pristina and supervised by the EU would help Serbia or Kosovo Serbs some day see justice prevail. The likelier outcome is that, as when the International Court of Justice rolled out an advisory opinion on the unilateral proclamation of Kosovo’s independence, the verdict resulting from the trial underway in Kosovo will exemplify the deep crisis into which the architects of the new world order have thrown the system of international law as a whole. In today’s world, national interests can only be protected with the backing from powerful international blocs, and, in this regard, Serbia’s only reasonable option is strategic partnership with Russia.
Marty’s report was the first internationally accepted document to shed light on the atrocities perpetrated by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the breakaway province. The document contained revelations about forced extractions from people held by the KLA – mostly ethnic Serbs – for illicit sale in Europe. According to Marty, in a makeshift clinic in the town of Fushe-Kruje, near the Albanian capital, some are said to have been killed and their organs removed to be sold on the international market. “As and when transplant surgeons were confirmed to be in position and ready to operate, the captives were brought out of the ‘safe house’ individually, summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic”.
Carla del Ponte’s accounts identify the locale used for the human organs extractions as a “yellow house” near Burrel, in the northern part of Albania. Neither Marty nor del Ponte managed to tease out of the Albanian administration consent for the necessary on-site investigations. Albanian premier Sali Berisha expressed the curious view that Marty’s investigation was “completely racist and defamatory” and Albanian parliamentarian and delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Shpetim Idrisi somehow traced the Swiss lawyer’s findings to Serbia and Russia. Eulex [European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo] representatives who oversee the probe tend to cast their skepticism in a more cautious form. “There is no evidence whatsoever in this case…No bodies. No witnesses”, said head of the war crimes unit of the mission Matti Raatikainen.
The problem is that the lack of evidence is due to the Western countries’ and international groups’ reluctance to seriously unearth the facts. Under the conditions, the Albanian and Kosovo administrations have no difficulty declining to cooperate in the investigation, and the EU mission to Kosovo chose to simply ignore the storyline involving the Serbs’ plight and to focus narrowly on the Medicus clinic, asserting that the case was limited to donors being deceived and surgeries performed without licenses, as if hundreds of Serbs were not held in captivity and mowed down.
The crimes that did come into the probe’s spotlight are still gross and punishable offenses, but it is also clear that the extremely diluted version of the drama serves to insulate from criticism the wider Kosovo independence project and to shield Hashim Thaci and other key figures involved from due inquiries.
Carla del Ponte’s statements like “NATO and UNMIK did not allow us to access important documents on Kosovo, while Albania did not let us enter its territory” cannot be taken at face value. As the Hague Tribunal persecutor she – and the powers behind her – surely had the leverage it would have taken to expand the investigation and to piece together the entire picture with all the finishing touches.
Big politics factored into the situation at all phases, and now justice only hangs over a crew of minor players like an Israeli go-between, a Turkish surgeon, a Kosovo urologist, and another fellow – a ministerial clerk – from the province. The individuals actually implicated in the framework generated by Marty’s report continue to be at the top of the political hierarchy, and Belgrade should steer its own course cleverly, mindful of what has happened to Serbs in Kosovo.
The next story, from 1996, reveals that organ theft in the Balkans began some time before this. Croat forces were trafficking in human organs from prisoners of war in Bosnia and using the proceeds to buy arms. The news reports are silent on the nationality, religion, or political affiliation of the deceased. But then, had the victims been anyone other than Serbs, the reports would have identified them.
1996: French reporter killed for investigating organ trafficking
[SNN] UN covered up Kosovo organ traffic; 1996 Croats sending “meat” to market.
ANTIC.org-SNN
Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:57:14 -0800Reporter ‘murdered over trade in organs’– October 1996, By Tim Brown in Madrid
A JOURNALIST found hanged in Menorca was investigating alleged trafficking in human organs taken from specially selected and executed Bosnian prisoners of war, it has been claimed.
The body of Xavier Gautier, 35, an investigative journalist for Le Figaro, was found in May hanging in a villa he had rented at Ciudadela to write a book about the former Yugoslavia. The slogan “Traitor, Red Devil” was scrawled in Italian on the dead man’s shirt and on a wall.
The claim that Gautier was investigating the trafficking in human organs taken from slaughtered prisoners in Bosnia, where he had spent many months for his newspaper, has been made by his father. He has given a dossier of the claims to the Spanish Civil Guard at Barcelona in a move to keep the case under investigation.
The information includes an eight-page list of names and addresses of people allegedly connected with the transplant racket found in the journalist’s Paris flat by his father.
Menorcan police insist that the journalist committed suicide and say their inquiries are over. His family is convinced that he was murdered. “In less than six hours the organs from the concentration camp were in a private clinic in Trieste”.
According to Mr Gautier, when his son’s body was found there were marks on the neck from two different ropes, the hands were tied, and painted on the shirt was the phrase “Diablo [sic] Rosso” – the nickname of Italian mercenary Robert delle Fave who had served with , Croatian forces.
Xavier Gautier had met delle Fave in Nice and received information from him about trafficking in human organs, his father insists in his dossier. The documents also state that Gautier was knocked down by hit and run driver near Barcelona in January. Later, a Spanish doctor who was present at that incident was knocked down and killed.—“Blood samples and medical details of the prisoners were sent to Italian and possibly Spanish doctors,” claims Gautier’s father. “In less than six hours the organs from the concentration camp were in a private clinic in Trieste.” He says money raised by selling the organs was used to buy arms.
Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid confirmed yesterday that the dossier had been passed to the investigating judge in Menorca.
Fri, 04 Oct 1996 07:42:16 -0700: Reporter ‘murdered over trade in (Bosnian) organs’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et/access?ac=113016801302&pg=//96/10/4/worg04.html
According to this story, Croats were in the business of sending “meat” to market.
Dana: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 04:03:56 CDT
Statistics about Yugoslav Civil War (1992-1996). 4 0ct 96.
For Fair Use Only. Electronic Telegraph International News Friday 4 October 1996 Issue 499.
Deseret News: DEAD REPORTER WAS PROBING TRAFFICKING OF ORGANS TO ITALY
London Observer Service
Published: Tuesday, May 28 1996 12:00 a.m. MDT
A leading French journalist may have been murdered to prevent him revealing an illicit trade in human organs between Bosnia and Italy.
Xavier Gautier, a specialist on the Balkans for the French newspaper Le Figaro, was found hanging in his holiday home in Menor-ca, Spain, on May 19.Spanish police said the initial autopsy indicated suicide, but they were carrying out more tests at the request of French authorities and his family.
Colleagues said Gautier, 35, was believed to have information about a trade in which Croatian guerrillas clubbed Bosnians to death in order to sell their bodies to a clinic in Trieste, Italy.
Gautier is believed to have obtained the information from a man in the Italian underworld known only as “Diavolo Rosso” (“Red Devil”).
The wall facing Gautier’s body in his house in Ciudadela, Menorca, had been painted with the words “traditore” (Italian for “traitor”) and “Diavolo Rosso.”
But colleagues said Gautier, who had begun a year’s sabbatical in March, had personal problems linked to the recent death of his younger brother. They said that after years of working as a war correspondent, Gautier, who was divorced, had become too close to his subject and might have wished to dramatize his own death.
Spanish police said a friend had found Gautier hanging in his unlocked vacation home, his feet barely off the floor. His hands were tied in front, and he was believed to have been dead for up to 24 hours when he was found.
There were no signs of a struggle nor did it appear that anything had been stolen from his house.
The same blue paint daubed on the wall in Gautier’s house had been used to paint a cross on his white shirt. It was not clear what it symbolized.
Charles Lambroschini, foreign editor of Le Figaro, said: “The family is convinced it is murder, and many of his colleagues are suspicious.”
Lambroschini was aware of Gautier’s interview with the Diavolo Rosso. “He wrote the article, but we did not publish it because elements were missing.”
However, Gautier had spoken widely to colleagues about his investigations into arms dealing through Austria and alleged organ trafficking to Italy.
One senior French journalist, who would not be named, said: “The stuff he had on the organs was good enough to endanger his life. It didn’t just implicate faceless war criminals in former Yugoslavia, but eminent Italians.”
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