Kosovo PM 'to sue' EU investigator
Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister, has said he will sue a Council of Europe investigator over a report that alleged he led an organised crime ring that trafficked human organs across eastern Europe.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Thaci said Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who wrote the report, should "prepare good lawyers to defend him".
"Under no circumstances will Dick Marty escape justice for this slander," he said, but did not elaborate.
Last week's report accused Thaci of heading a crime ring during and after the Kosovo war in the late 1990s, which killed opponents and trafficked in drugs and organs taken from murdered Serbs.
Marty led a team of investigators to Kosovo and Albania in 2009, following allegations of organ trafficking published in a book by Carla Del Ponte, former chief UN war crimes tribunal prosecutor who said she was given information by Western journalists.
In a separate interview with the AP news agency also published yesterday, Thaci said he wanted an independent investigation to "dispel the mist" surrounding the allegations, saying he has "nothing to hide".
He said the allegations were aimed at undermining Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and blamed Marty for masterminding what he said was a "powerful attack upon Kosovo, Albania and all Albanians".
"It damages Kosovo's image and me personally. But, I have challenged similar inventions for the past 15 years and I have always won," he told the AP.
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