Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, says in her new book that ethnic Serbs were taken from their homes and swifted to Albania to harvest and sell their organs. Among the allegations are testimony from the book's co-author, Chuck Sudetic, that evidence found in one home shows blood splattered walls throughout, except in one area about the size and shape of a hospital gurney. Del Ponte says in her book she could not bring the charges to prosecution because she lacked prosecutorial authority. And this from the same prominent prosecutor who said in July 2007 the most wanted war crimes suspects in modern history would be handed over in a matter of weeks.
—
By MARC CHAMPION
April 14, 2008; Page A13BRUSSELS — Incendiary allegations in a new book by a prominent European prosecutor are further stoking anti-Western tensions in Serbia ahead of pivotal elections.
Carla Del Ponte, who until January was chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, writes in a book released in Italian earlier this month that she found evidence that ethnic Serbs were kidnapped from Kosovo and taken to Albania to harvest and sell their organs.
Ms. Del Ponte writes that in 2003 she collected testimony from multiple eye witnesses who had visited a house in Albania that allegedly had been used as an operating theater to remove organs from 100 to 300 Kosovo Serbs in 1999, after NATO troops took control of the Serbian province.
Forensic experts found blood traces all across the repainted walls and floor, except for a six-foot-by-two-foot rectangle on the floor — roughly the shape of a gurney, according to Chuck Sudetic, who co-wrote the book.
Young Serbs were allegedly killed, their organs were harvested and transferred for sale abroad, the book says.
Ms. Del Ponte writes she wasn't able to pursue the evidence she found because she lacked jurisdiction to prosecute, as well as cooperative witnesses.
The Swiss prosecutor's revelations have added to the belief among Serbs that the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague and the West are biased. That is a theme that is playing strongly for nationalists ahead of general elections May 11, says Kazimir Curguz, head of the Ebart media monitoring and analysis center in Belgrade, Serbia.
The election campaign is being fought primarily over whether Serbia should continue trying to join the European Union, despite EU support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia. Nationalists say that if they take power they will cease any cooperation with the Hague war-crimes tribunal, a precondition for membership talks with the EU.
Serbian resentment was stoked further by the acquittal earlier this month of Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovo prime minister and commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army, of war-crimes charges at the Hague tribunal.
As Mr. Haradinaj arrived home to a hero's welcome in Kosovo on Friday, Serbia's government described his release as “a serious blow to international justice.” The judgment acquitting Mr. Haradinaj gave a long statement on the troubles the court had persuading witnesses to testify and said the trial was held in “an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe.”
The acquittal “is a strong win for the radicals and nationalists” in Serbia's election campaign, Mr. Curguz says.
Serbia, backed by Russia, continues to battle Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence earlier this year. Kosovo was under U.N. jurisdiction since 1999, when a North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign drove Serbian forces out of the territory in response to ethnic cleansing. About 90% of Kosovo's population are ethnic Albanian.
The strength of the protest Ms. Del Ponte's book has caused Switzerland's government to block her from promoting it, because it would be inconsistent with her new job as the country's ambassador to Argentina. Ms. Del Ponte stepped down as the war crimes prosecutor in January.
Ms. Del Ponte wasn't able to pursue the organ-trafficking case because the issue arose after NATO's conflict with Serbian forces ended, and therefore by definition isn't a war crime, Mr. Sudetic said. That left it to U.N. or Kosovo Albanian authorities to pick up the investigation, Ms. Del Ponte writes in her book, “The Hunt: Me and War Criminals,” which was published in Italy on April 3 and will be released in the U.S. in January.
U.N. Mission in Kosovo spokesman Alexander Ivanko said he didn't know if the U.N. ever pursued the case. Kosovo's justice minister, Nekibe Kelmendi, dismissed the allegations as “pure fabrications by Del Ponte or by Serbia itself.”
At the house in Burrel, about 60 miles north of the Albanian capital Tirana, Ms. Del Ponte writes, her staff found gauze and used vials of muscle relaxant discarded outside. The owner initially said nothing unusual had happened in his living room, Mr. Sudetic said. When extensive blood staining was found, the owner's wife initially said she had given birth there and then retracted, he said. The owner then said he had slaughtered livestock in the room, according to Mr. Sudetic.
