The Institute of Forensic Medicine continues to have more than 700 cases awaiting laboratory analysis, with approximately half of them related to suspicious deaths and murders. The laboratory and X-ray service have remained out of operation for more than three years following two fires that affected the institute in 2023.
As a result of the lack of these services, the number of cases awaiting the completion of autopsies in suspected death or murder cases has increased. Meanwhile, autopsies are being carried out in an improvised space, but toxicology, histopathology and radiography analyses cannot be performed because the renovation of the examination room has taken years.
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Agron Thaci, the acting director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, told Radio Kosovo that the renovation is expected to be completed by next week at the latest.
“More than 700 cases are pending, of which around 300 are cases for which the Prosecutor’s Office has requested a full examination,” Thaci said.
According to him, once the work is completed, the laboratory equipment will need to be tested and calibrated. These procedures, he stressed, are necessary before the toxicology, histopathology and radiography laboratories can resume operations.
Radio Kosovo received confirmation only from the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Pristina and the Special Prosecutor’s Office that they are awaiting the completion of 200 autopsies due to the lack of laboratory and X-ray services.
Thaci said that once laboratory analyses resume, priority will be given to the samples currently awaiting examination.
The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for the investigation report concerning the fires at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. The fires occurred shortly after it was reported in December 2022 that 12 samples linked to the death in prison of former Vetëvendosje activist Astrit Dehari had gone missing from the toxicology laboratory. It later emerged that the samples had not been lost.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office had launched investigations into both the samples issue and the fires, but no results have been recorded in the case so far.
