Picture: FOCUS News Agency

Five doctors jailed for Kosovo organ trafficking
 

29 April 2013 | 20:55 | FOCUS News Agency

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Pristina. An EU-led court in Kosovo on Monday jailed five doctors for organ trafficking at a Pristina clinic in the first such case in the breakaway territory which has already faced allegations of similar crimes during and after its 1998-99 war, AFP reported.
Former Kosovo health secretary Ilir Rrecaj -- who admitted during the trial that he knew that illegal kidney transplants were carried out at the Medicus clinic in Pristina in 2008, but denied covering them up -- was acquitted.
Prominent Pristina urologist Lutfi Dervishi got the stiffest term of eight years for "organised crime and human trafficking", the judge said in the verdict.
His son Arban Dervishi was sentenced to seven years and three months, while the other three defendants received terms of between one and three years.
Another defendant in the trial, which opened in 2011, was also acquitted.
Dervishi's lawyer Petrit Dushi said he would appeal the verdict, which he said was "not acceptable for us".
The indictment says at least 30 illegal kidney removals and transplants were carried out at the clinic in the Kosovo capital in 2008.
Police raided the clinic after a Turkish man collapsed at Pristina airport waiting for a flight back to Istanbul after having had a kidney removed.