Belgrade calls on EULEX to take responsibility

21 December 2010 | 09:52 | Source: B92, Beta

STRASBOURG -- Rasim Ljajić said in Strasbourg in Monday that the EU mission in Kosovo, EULEX, should assume responsibility for the Kosovo organ trade. Rasim Ljajić (Beta, file) The chairman of the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal said that EULEX should also process as soon as possible the cases of trafficking in human organs. "We believe this issue must be free of any politics, that it is in the interest of Serbia for the entire case to be processed as soon as possible, that EULEX should assume responsibility, because this is an exclusive issue that is a precondition for the establishing of the process of reconciliation in the entire region," Ljajić said in a telephone statement to Beta news agency from Strasbourg. Ljajić and the director of the Office for Cooperation with the ICTY, Dusan Ignjatović, had talks in Strasbourg about the report of Dick Marty on trafficking in human organs with the commissioner for human rights, Tomas Hammarberg, and the general secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE), Mateo Sorinas. "Considering that Serbia has done much in the processing of crimes in the field of war crimes, that our war crimes prosecution has so far processed 383 cases in war crimes proceedings, we therefore expect others to do likewise in this concrete case - for EULEX to do so," Ljajić said. He said that "the responsibility is primarily that of representatives of the international community or, more precisely, UNMIK, which has so far done nothing in solving these cases." Ljajić said he hoped the CoE Parliamentary Assembly will adopt a resolution and recommendations, in order for the Ministerial Committee to be able to order the CoE member states to demonstrate readiness and help EULEX in processing the cases described in Marty's report. CoE Rapporteur Dick Marty last week presented his reportwhere he named the Kosovo Albanian KLA and its leaders, including Hashim Thaci, for the 1999 and 2000 kidnappings of Serbs and other civilians in the province, and removal of their body parts for sale in the black market.