February 27, 2013
715 Lexime
A handwriting expert told the high-profile Kosovo organ-trafficking trial that scientific analysis proved that a Pristina clinic owner and his son had agreed illicit kidney operations.
Vedat Xhymshiti | Promote your Page too
 |
|
– Police officials said that the Medicus clinc in Pristina, Kosovo,
was secretly transformed by Dr. Lutfi Dervishi into a hub for
illegal organ transplants – NYTimes . (AP/Visar Kryeziu)
|
Graphologist Milazim Tahirukaj testified on Tuesday that the majority of the documents authorising the operations were signed by Lufti Dervishi, the owner of the Medicus clinic near Pristina where the illegal transplants are alleged to have taken place, or by his son Arban Dervishi.
Tahirukaj said that experts had compared the signatures with the clinic owner’s handwriting on a document sent to Kosovo’s health ministry, and had found that they were “written by the same person”.
The graphologist said that analysis of documents signed by Dervishi’s son also proved they were genuine.
However Arban Dervishi’s defence argued that the signatures had been copied bysomeone else. The two men are charged with human trafficking, organised crime and unlawful medical activities at the Medicus clinic, along with five other Kosovo Albanians and two foreign nationals.
The indictment says that 30 illegal kidney transplants took place at the clinic in 2008. Poor people from Turkey, Russia, Moldova and Kazakhstan were allegedly lured to the clinic with the false promise that they would receive up to 15,000 euro for their kidneys.
Lutfi Dervishi denies any wrongdoing, saying that he was not informed that illegal organ transplants had taken place at his clinic.
| Edona Peci | BIRN | Pristina | KOSOVO
