Serb Prisoners and Organ Stripping

Carla del Ponte's new book alleges that some hundreds of Serb prisoners were held and then stripped of their organs for the transplant trade.

Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war, according to allegations in a new book by the world's best known war crimes prosecutor.

Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down in January as chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal for crimes committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, said investigators found a house suspected of being a laboratory for the illegal trade.

It's worth noting that this most certainly is not first hand information, not even second hand to Ms. del Ponte.

In fact, it's rumour, without much supporting evidence. A Fistful of Euros had a look at the book and the claim before it was published. The sceptical part that made sense to me was this:

Five, organ-legging is… well, let’s say it’s also pretty unlikely. Albania has a pretty primitive medical infrastructure even today. In 1999 it was much worse. Now, in theory you wouldn’t need much to get organs out of someone: a good doctor, a couple of assistants, and some basic equipment would do it. The problem is, once you have the organs out the clock starts ticking. Some bits keep better than others — corneas can last for days — but for kidneys, lungs or a heart you’re talking less than 24 hours, even with freezing and preservatives, before it’s just so much bad meat. This is why organlegging isn’t a major threat around the world. Good fresh organs are worth a lot, and there are probably plenty of evil people who’d be willing to kidnap folks and cut them up. But it’s that last leg that’s the kicker.

In developed countries, there’s a whole infrastructure for moving fresh organs around fast fast fast. In Albania… umm.

However evil and vile you want to make out the KLA to be, there simply wasn't any point in them trying this tactic: there would be no benefit to them of doing so. But then I admit, I'm prone to using economic incentives as a way of explaining things that people will or will not do.

In a way, the truth of it all doesn't actually matter:

And in a way it doesn’t matter. The story has already entered Serbia’s mass consciousness; a large minority of Serbs have completely accepted it, and many more are at least affected by it. (Well, surely something horrible happened there…) The already poisonous atmosphere has become some small bit more envenomed.

I'm desperately racking my brains to remember whose series of sci-fi novels contains this dystopia of having a bank of prisoners used as an organ bank. I want to say either Fred Hoyle or Jerry Pournelle but a quick look at lists of their books doesn't strike a spark.

Anyone remember? I'm certainly not trying to say that the novel (s) sparked the meme, just to point out that it's a story that has been thought up before.