Serbia's War Crimes Prosecution Office is investigating whether hundreds of Serbian prisoners in the 1998-99 Kosovo war were butchered for their organs by Albanian gangs. Incredible as these allegations sound, they have been given credibility by the memoirs of the former chief international war crimes tribunal prosecutor which were published in Italy last week.

In her book, "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals" ("La caccia: Io e i criminali di guerra", Carla del Ponte, who is now Swiss ambassador to Argentina, says that she had been told by reliable journalists that 300 Serbs were abducted and killed for organ trafficking in 1999. Del Ponte says that she was told that the Serbs were taken to prison camps in northern Albania where the younger ones were picked out, and their organs sold abroad. However, she says that investigators looking into alleged war crimes by the Kosovo Liberation Army were not able to complete a case on the organ trafficking claims. ~ IPS News Service, Apr 1; AP, Mar 21