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UN covered up organ trafficking report, says Serbia

Serbia asked the international war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia to investigate a former UN chief in Kosovo for covering up a report on organ trafficking, a report said on Sunday.

The former head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo, Soren Jessen-Petersen, is seen in 2006. Serbia asked the international war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia to investigate Petersen for covering up a report on organ trafficking, according to a newspaper report.

Serbia's minister for cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) wrote to chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz seeking an inquest into Soren Jessen Petersen, the head of the UN's mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2004 to 2006, Blic newspaper reported.

"We are waiting for ICTY to open an inquest into UNMIK officials at the time for contempt of court", minister Rasim Ljajic told the newspaper.

Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty published a report earlier this month that linked Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci to organ trading and organised crime, which Thaci has denied.

UNMIK investigated possible organ trafficking in 2004, but it did not take it further citing lack of evidence.

"At the time, UNMIK said it did not have a report on organ trafficking and had no proof ... But in 2008 our war crimes prosecutor obtained 16 pages of this report," Ljajic said.

Marty's report said Thaci headed a Kosovo Liberation Army faction which controlled secret detention centres in Albania, where the human organ trafficking was alleged to have taken place in the aftermath of the 1998-99 war between the guerrillas and Serbian forces.

December 27, 2010 (AFP)

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