US prosecutor to probe Kosovo organ trafficking claims: EU
(PRISTINA) - Authorities in Kosovo have appointed a US prosecutor to investigate allegations linking prime minister Hashim Thaci and other senior figures to organ trafficking.
"John Clint Williamson from the United States has been appointed lead prosecutor for the EULEX Special Investigative Task Force," the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo said.
Williamson is a former US ambassador at large for war crimes and worked for the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He was briefly the director of justice of the UN mission to Kosovo.
"This task force will further the investigation into the allegations contained in the Council of Europe Report of December 2010 by Senator Dick Marty," which linked former rebel leader Thaci and other members of his Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) to allegations of organ trafficking.
EULEX launched its preliminary investigation in January.
Marty's report said Thaci headed a Kosovo guerrilla faction that controlled secret detention centres in Albania where Kosovo Serbs and Albanians considered collaborators were held.
The report alleged that human organ trafficking took place in three of the centres in the aftermath of the 1998-99 war between the Kosovo Liberation Army's (KLA) guerrillas and Serbian forces.
Thaci denies the allegations.
The Kosovo conflict ended after a NATO air campaign ousted then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's forces from the territory, paving the way for the establishment of UN administration in Kosovo.
EULEX was launched only months after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 to oversee and strengthen the rule of law. The mission is empowered to take on cases considered too sensitive for the local judiciary.
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