Dick Marty, the Council of Europe rapporteur who linked Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci to organ trading and organized crime, dismissed a threat to sue him for libel in an interview Thursday.

“Mister Thaci knows very well that Council of Europe rapporteurs have immunity and filing a suit in such cases means nothing,” Marty said in an interview with Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti.

Marty’s report, released just days after the first general election since Kosovo declared independence in 2008, implicated Thaci in organ trafficking.

It said the Kosovar leader headed a Kosovo Liberation Army faction which controlled secret detention centers in Albania where the human organ trafficking was alleged to have taken place in the aftermath of the 1998-99 war between the guerrillas and Serbian forces.

It also alleged that Thaci is a leading organized crime boss, citing other reports about his suspected involvement in drugs trade.

Thaci has hit back in several interviews denying the allegations and vowing to sue Marty for libel.

“It is easy to sue someone, but it is necessary, above all, to do everything to see what happened, explain and respond, point by point, to the allegations mentioned” in the report, Marty told the newspaper.

“I think that the various relevant institutions should investigate all the claims now…the Kosovo judiciary, the international legal authorities, but also Serbian justice, which is also competent, because it is evident there were Serbian victims.”

Serbia has already investigated the claims but said it wouldn’t file charges against Thaci as it was unlikely he could be tried here and any attempt at prosecution by Belgrade would be dismissed as politically motivated.

December 23, 2010
AFP

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