Illicit trafficiking of human organs in Kosovo

The request was partially successful.

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

I wish to see copies of documents held by FCO which mention and refer to the Council of Europe Report, "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit traficking in human organs in Kosovo" written by Dick Marty.

In particular I am interested in seeing UK official reactions and assessments in response to the Marty report.

Yours faithfully,

A Petrovic

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FOI Request, Ref: 0581-11

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. It has been assigned a unique reference number (above) and has been passed to the relevant section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deal with. They will be in touch with you should your request need clarification.

We received your request on 31 May 2011 and will aim to respond within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely

Ron
Information Rights Team
FCO

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

1 Attachment

Dear A Petrovic,

Thank you for your recent FOI request. Please find attached our response.

Best regards,

Western Balkans Department.

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.fco.gov.uk/
2. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

You have taken 20 days to advise me that a PIT is required! And you have not even advised me which qualified exemption/s you are considering in your PIT! Can you please, at least inform me which qualified exemption/s you are considering?

Yours faithfully,

A Petrovic

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

I am away from my desk until 1pm on 29th June. If your query is urgent,
please contact Rebecca Shah.

For support staff queries, including room bookings, please contact Rebecca
Drage and Lucy Glynn.

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.fco.gov.uk/
2. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

1 Attachment

Dear A Petrovic,

Please find attached a letter relating to the current status of your FOI
request (0581-11).

Kind regards

Western Balkans Team
Foreign and Commonwealth office

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.fco.gov.uk/
2. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

On the 27 June you advised me that you needed 20 extra working days to provide me with a response because you had to carry out a PIT. Now, almost 20 days later you do not mention anything about the PIT you were supposedly carrying out, and instead engage s.12
and claim that you will exceed the appropriate limit if you were to respond to my request!

Clearly, you either have no clue what you are doing or this is a deliberate cheating tactic to extend the deadline for when you need to send a response to me.

Fine, in order to get my request under the appropriate limit, - please limit your assessment to strictly those documents with UK official assessments of the Council of Europe report.

Yours faithfully,

A Petrovic

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Foreign and Commonwealth Office's handling of my FOI request 'Illicit trafficiking of human organs in Kosovo'.

The handling of my request has been appalling. First I was advised a PIT was being carried out. Then the following reply I received mentioned nothing about the PIT but engages s.12. This is clearly a decietful manner for the public authority to gain extra time to respond to my request.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/il...

Yours faithfully,

A Petrovic

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FOI Request, Ref: 0807-11

Dear Mr Petrovic

Thank you for your refined Freedom of Information request. It has been
assigned a unique reference number (above) and has been passed to the
relevant section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deal with.
They will be in touch with you should your request need clarification.

We received your request on 26 July 2011 and will aim to respond within 20
working days.

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Team

FCO

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Dear A Petrovic

Thank you for your e-mail of 26 July 2011, in which you requested an Internal Review of your FOI Request 0581-11. Your request has been logged and passed to the relevant team within the Foreign & Commonwealth Office for actioning. They will be in touch with you with an outcome.

Yours sincerely

Jackie Till
Information Rights
Information Management Group | Information & Technology Directorate | Foreign & Commonwealth Office
email: [FCO request email]
... visit our blogs at http://blogs.fco.gov.uk

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

1 Attachment

Dear A Petrovic,

Please find attached our response relating to your request for an internal
review of FOI 0581-11.

Kind regards,

Western Balkans Department

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.fco.gov.uk/
2. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/

Helen Cross left an annotation ()

The FCO response to this request can be found here:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/do...

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

I am requesting an internal review on the handling and release of information into my request.

I am unconvinced by some of your PIT arguments for withholding much of the information I requested. I believe the balance of interest in releasing info is far greater than withholding for the simple reason that the public deserves to know whether their money is being used to fund and support a regime accused of inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs. With reference to s.36(2)(b) you have not even set out any of the factors you considered in your PIT in favour of releasing the info.

By releasing the info you withheld under s.35 and s.36(2)(b) you could show that decisions are taken on the basis of the best available information.

Yours faithfully,

A Petrovic

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Internal Review for FOI Request Ref 0807-11

Dear Mr Petrivic

Thank you for your request for an Internal Review of your FOI Request Ref
0807-11. It has been passed to the relevant department within the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office to deal with. They will be in touch with you with
an outcome.

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Team
FCO

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A Petrovic left an annotation ()

The FCO keep responding to my requests by posting an answer to a different one of my requests instead of posting the answer that is relevant to each specific request.

The latest responses to this request can be found here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/as...

Re: the Internal Review for this request - I advise that the FCO internal reviewers should foloow this piece of guidance from the ICO:

"The Commissioner considers that a reasonable time
for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review. There may be a small number of cases which involve exceptional circumstances where it may be reasonable to take longer. In those circumstances, the public authority should, as a matter of good practice, notify the requester and explain why more time is needed.

In our view, in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days.

In such cases we would expect a public authority to be able to demonstrate that it had commenced the review procedure promptly following receipt of the request for review and had actively worked on the review throughout that period."

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

4 Attachments

Dear A Petrovic

Thank you for your request for an Internal Review of your FOI Request Ref 0807-11. Please find attached our response to your request and three related documents.

Kind regards,

Western Balkans Department

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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A Petrovic left an annotation ()

The ICO has issued a Decision Notice into the FCO's procedural handling of this case. My complaint was upheld re s.1 and s.17 of FOIA.

The DN can be found on the ICO website.

Search for Decision Notices - Ref:FS50422984

A Petrovic left an annotation ()

The ICO finally issued a Decision Notice on my complaint where I argued that the FCO had withheld too much information from my request.

Unsurprisingly, most of the information I asked to be released was atill withheld although some info re s35 was ordered to be released by FCO:

In summary:FOI 27 - Complaint Not upheld , FOI 31 - Complaint Partly Upheld , FOI 35 - Complaint Not upheld , FOI 36 - Complaint Not upheld

Full Details of the DN Here:
http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...