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KOSOVO

Kosovo leader won’t sue Swiss politician over organ trading report

Hashim Thaci will not file a legal claim against Swiss politician Dick Marty who wrote a Council of Europe report linking the Kosovo prime minister to organ trafficking in the 1990s, media reported on Thursday.

Published: 3 November 2011 17:14 CET

Thaci “does not want to influence the (independent) investigation opened by US prosecutor John Clint Williamson,” Kosovo deputy prime minister Hajredin Kuci told local media.

Prosecutor Williamson heads up a working group set up by the European Union’s EULEX rule of law mission in Kosovo to investigate the claims made in Marty’s report.

In the report, Marty said that members of Thaci’s Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerilla forces set up prison camps for Serbs and Kosovo Albanians accused of collaborating with Serbs on Albanian soil during and right after the 1998-99 conflict.

In some cases it is alleged that prisoners were killed and their organs harvested to be sold on the international black market. Marty, from the liberal FPD, writes that the group within the KLA carrying out the alleged crimes was closely linked to Thaci.

The Kosovo prime minister has always denied the charged and earlier threatened Marty with legal action.

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SERBIA

Swiss may extradite Kosovan war crimes suspects: report

Swiss authorities have arrested two Kosovans wanted by Serbia for suspected war crimes, but the question of where to extradite them to is stirring up diplomatic tensions, Swiss media report.

Published: 3 May 2016 09:05 CEST
Swiss may extradite Kosovan war crimes suspects: report
Swiss president and justice minister Simonetta Sommaruga is studying the case. Photo: AFP

The men, whose names were not given, were both arrested last week and are suspected by Belgrade of committing war crimes as members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1998–99 war, the ATS news agency reported, citing information from the justice ministry.    

The first man, who was arrested in Zurich last Tuesday after Serbian authorities requested his extradition, is reportedly suspected of participating in armed attacks in 1998 against two villages situated in what today is Kosovo.

Serbia accuses him of a range of crimes, including murder, rape and conducting illegal arrests, ATS reported.

The second man was arrested during a routine check in Geneva last Thursday, according to the justice ministry.

Serbia reportedly wants him handed over on suspicion he killed a civilian in 1999.

Both men have refused their extraditions, in a move that will draw out the process and could see the issue go to court.

Complicating matters further, Kosovo insists that it, not Serbia, should handle cases of suspected war crimes committed by Kosovan citizens.

On Friday, Kosovo Justice Minister Hajredin Kuci sent a letter to his Swiss counterpart Simonetta Sommaruga to object to any plans to extradite the men to Serbia, the Sonntagszeitung weekly reported Sunday.

The Swiss justice ministry confirmed to news agency AFP that Sommaruga had received a letter from Kuci, and had responded, addressing his concerns.

In 2012, Switzerland was faced with a similar case.

That time, Bern decided to extradite an ethnic Albanian war crimes suspect to Serbia, since Serbian judicial authorities maintained he was a Serbian citizen.

The suspect, who insisted he was Kosovan, was in the end reportedly released due to lack of evidence.

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