14/12/2010 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
14.12.2010 – At a meeting in Paris on Thursday 16 December, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) is expected to adopt a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE) on the inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo.*
The adopted text - which will published on PACE website as soon as possible - should then be debated by the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 January, during its winter plenary session (24-28 January 2011).
The rapporteur visited the region, including Belgrade, Tirana and Pristina, where he met justice and interior ministry officials, public prosecutors and prosecutors investigating war crimes, national parliamentary delegations and officials of various international institutions represented in Pristina (in particular EULEX and UNMIK), as well as NGOs, particularly ones representing disappeared persons.
In April 2008, seventeen parliamentarians signed a motion for a resolution calling on the Assembly to examine some of the allegations made by Carla Del Ponte, former Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in her recently published book. The matter was referred to the Assembly's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, which in June 2008 appointed Dick Marty as its rapporteur.
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Practical arrangements
The meeting takes place at the Council of Europe office in Paris (55 avenue Kléber, 16e metro: Boissière) on Thursday 16 December from 9 am. It will not be open to the press.
Mr Marty will give a press conference at 2.30 pm at the same premises. Accreditation: PACE Communication Division, tel. +33 3 88 41 31 93, [email protected]
Following its adoption, the text will be posted on the Assembly website (http://assembly.coe.int) as soon as possible. A video recording of the press conference will also be posted later in the day.
Contacts
In Strasbourg: PACE Communication Division, tel +33 3 88 41 31 93.
In Paris: Micaela Catalano, Head of the Communication Division, tel. + 33 3 6 08 56 40 65 and Francesc Ferrer, tel. + 33 3 6 30 49 68 22.
*All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.