By: Dean B. Pineles

Six years of efforts to deliver justice were wasted when the defendants convicted in the Medicus organ-trafficking case were inexplicably sent for retrial, says a judge who served on the original trial panel.

On April 17, the European Commission released its lengthy and detailed report on Kosovo for 2018. As a former international judge with the European Union Rule of Law Mission, EULEX, from 2011-13, I was particularly interested in the report’s analysis of the Kosovo judiciary.

Saranda Bogujevci, survivor of a massacre of 14 Albanian women and children in Kosovo in 1999, said that a Serbian court’s decision to release one of the convicted attackers on parole was “unacceptable”.

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Lutfi Dervishi, who is on trial for alleged involvement in organ-trafficking from the Medicus clinic in Kosovo, told a Pristina court that he once assisted a wanted Turkish doctor in a kidney transplant.

The former owner of the Medicus clinic, Lutfi Dervishi, who is being retried for alleged involvement in organised crime in connection with people-trafficking, told Pristina Basic Court on Wednesday that he once assisted in a kidney transplant at the clinic.

Following the government's initiative, the speaker of Kosovo's parliament has called for a 'unity team' to represent the country in the EU-led dialogue – but many MPs are far from convinced.

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Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj presented an award to the founder of Serbia’s Humanitarian Law Centre, Natasa Kandic, for her role in uncovering the truth about victims killed during the Kosovo war.

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The draft version of the EU-Western Balkans declaration expected to be delivered at the end of the upcoming summit in Sofia will refer to Balkan countries as 'partners' instead of 'states’ in order to ensure participation of those that have not recognised Kosovo’s independence.

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Aleksandar Vucic has undertaken a frenetic diplomatic offensive lately – pressing Serbia’s case in its worsening feud with Kosovo on a range of world leaders.

After Kosovo controversially deported a Serbian official, Kosovo Serb politicians said they will quit the Kosovo government and unilaterally set up an Association of Serbian Municipalities without Pristina’s involvement.

Goran Rakic, the president of the main Kosovo Serb party, Srpska Lista, said on Tuesday that an Association of Serbian Municipalities will be set up independently from Pristina and that the party will leave the Kosovo government.

The presidents of Kosovo and Serbia are to restart the stalled negotiation process between the two governments in Brussels on Friday, almost seven months after they last met.

Presidents Aleksandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci are to continue the EU-led negotiations on normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo on Friday, after the latest round of experts’ dialogue failed to make progress.

A Kosovo court has found the former Pristina Grand Mosque Imam Shefqet Krasniqi not guilty of encouraging terrorist acts in his sermons and on social media.

Pristina's Basic Court on Friday acquitted the former Imam of Pristina's Grand Mosque, Shefqet Krasniqi, of inciting terrorism and national, racial and religious hatred, and of tax evasion.

Several people had claimed that Krasniqi's sermons and lectures prompted their relatives to go and fight for Islamist extremists in Syria.