Prosecutor on war crimes, political pressure

4 January 2011 | 13:14 -> 14:19 | Source: B92

BELGRADE -- Serbia'a war crimes prosecutor believes that "there is no policy that would stand behind a man who took part in something like human organ trafficking". Vladimir Vukčević (FoNet, file) Vladimir Vukčević spoke for B92 on Tuesday, and said that he previously thought "politics" could not influence criminal proceedings, but that he has been convinced to believe otherwise. The prosecutor expressed fear that there was "political pressure that could jeopardize the Kosovo organ trafficking case". He mentioned the verdict in the Gnjilane Group trial and the start of the Ćuška trial as key events for his office in 2010. "I would single out the report of Dick Marty, because it validates three years of work, we are still working on it (the organ trafficking case), but this report gives us satisfaction that we were right when we said these things happened. In the early days, when we made it public, many people thought it was completely morbid and impossible," said Vukčević. The Council of Europe investigator's report names Kosovo Albanian PM Hashim Thaci and other KLA members as responsible for kidnapping Serbs in the province and selling their harvested organs in the black market. The prosecutor also noted that his office and the Hague action team continue to look for Hague fugitives accused of war crimes, and that progress was made recently in breaking up the financial support network for the former political leader of Serbs in Croatia Goran Hadžić. Vukčević said that "a photograph of a Modigliani painting" was found, that the artwork was insured to EUR 15mn, and was to be sold in order to finance Hadžić's hiding.