A.B. Abrams

Although portrayed as freedom fighters until after the Western military campaign against Yugoslavia ended in 1999, the KLA’s war crimes were well documented by both Western and international sources. Aside from ties to Islamist terror groups, this included widespread organised rapes of Serb, Roma and pro-government Albanian women,76 attacks on Serbian cultural sites including centuries old churches, at times using mortar bombs,77 racially motivated massacres and disappearances of Serbs,78 and the use of child soldiers. Ambassador and chief prosecutor at The Hague’s International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte, who formerly served as the Swiss attorney general, reported that the KLA relied on organ trafficking to earn revenues. Citing evidence obtained by Hague Tribunal investigators, she reported that this included the targeting of Serb prisoners for forced organ harvesting.79 Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Swiss state prosecutor Dick Marty cited a figure of 300 Serb prisoners victimised in this way, and tied former KLA political leader Hashim Thaçi, who by that time had become Kosovan prime minister, to the harvesting.80