Tirana, 17 October 2022
Dear,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to draw your attention on a question of crucial importance not only for my country and the people I represent but for all of us. It concerns justice and human rights, the core values at the heart of every democratic system – values to which we pay tribute in our daily work and that are increasingly threatened in the current political predicament.
As you are probably aware, in 2008, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, published her memoir, Madame Prosecutor. She claimed that heinous crimes had been committed by members of the Kosova Liberation Army, including first and primarily rampant human organ trafficking.
Her allegations were denied forcefully, in Albania, in Kosova and elsewhere in the region, for the very simple reason that investigations conducted over the course of several years by the ICTY Chief Prosecutor, including in Albania, had been entirely inconclusive. This should have been enough for the issue to end where it started: in the pages of literary nonfiction. It was instead picked up by others, more specifically Russian members of “United Russia” Putin’s party in the CoE, who instrumentalised it to push the known Russian narrative on Kosova. Further, a report was presented (again in the absence of proof) to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Based on that report and the severity of the allegations, the Assembly adopted in January 2011 the resolution 1782 titled “Investigation of allegations of inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo”.
Fast-forward 11 years and every investigative effort made since, nationally, regionally and internationally to prove allegations on human organ trafficking have come to ascertain the obvious: there is absolutely no evidence in Albania or anywhere else in the region of organ harvesting and trafficking, attributable to any member of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Moreover, indictments issued by the Specialist Chambers in the Hague do not include a single word regarding alleged human organ harvesting and trafficking.
Surprising as this may seem, there are no facts, there are no perpetrators, there are no victims of human organ trafficking. The report and ensuing resolution of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly were founded on speculation rather than facts, on wild rumours rather than proof. They have come to be an undeserved stain on the integrity of those unjustly accused and an embarrassment for the international politics.
On 12 October 2022, I made these arguments in front of the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg to urge the Council of Europe to issue a follow-up report. The question is of the utmost importance not only to protect the rights of individuals unjustly accused of wrongs they never committed. It is not simply to protect due process through court procedures and a due process that needs to be fair and flawless. It is about the citizens of my country, Albania, that continue to be the target of dangerous unfounded stereotypes such as this one, and victims of the hostility and xenophobia that allegations such as this one end up fueling. And it is about truth and justice, without which the very integrity and credibility of international politics and our multilateral institutions is undermined.
For your information, I am including herewith a copy of my remarks delivered before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as well as a copy of the resolution adopted by the Albanian Parliament on the issue.
I hope to count on your personal support as well as on that of Members of the Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to endorse our request in order to start the procedure that would lead to a follow-up report as a necessary and honest remedy to a tragic mistake whose repercussions continue to haunt us.
Let me thank you wholeheartedly in advance for your help.
Sincerely,
Edi Rama
H.E.
Minister President of
