Kosovo leaders ‘run crime network’

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President Bush with Kosovo leaders in 2008 (Photo: White House)

It’s never good when a friend is accused of serious crimes. And a US friend – the new Balkan nation of Kosovo – is about to face some very serious accusations. A report is due to be presented to the Council of Europe tomorrow that says the government of Kosovo is a mafia-like group. The report states that Kosovo’s leaders have been involved in drug-trafficking, arms-smuggling, and even organ harvesting.

The US helped install and legitimize this government after the war with Serbia in 1999. A copy of the report was obtained by the British newspaper, The Guardian, and by the US-based Center for Investigative Reporting. Lisa Mullins talks with Michael Montgomery who is a journalist with the Center. Download MP3

Montgomery also reported for this program last year on abuses by Kosovar guerrillas in the aftermath of the 1999 war, including secret detention, murder, and organ harvesting.

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• BBC video: Kosovo rejects organ-trafficking claims
• CIR investigation
• Montgomery outlines the evidence supporting the accusations on BBC radio
• Guardian report
• Kosovo war crimes suspect arrested (May 2010)

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  It’s never a good thing when a friend is accused of serious crimes and a U.S. friend, the new Balkan nation of Kosovo is about to face some very serious accusations.  A report is due to be presented to the Council of Europe, tomorrow that says that the government of Kosovo is a Mafia like group. The report, commissioned by the Council of Europe states that Kosovo’s leaders have been involved in drug trafficking, arm smuggling and even organ harvesting.  A copy of the report was obtained by the British newspaper, the Guardian and by the U.S. based Center for Investigative Reporting.  Michael Montgomery is a journalist with the Center.  You reported, Michael, for this program last year on abuses by the Kosovar guerrillas in the aftermath of the 1999 war, including secret detention, murder, organ harvesting.  Can you tell us, briefly, what the connection is right now between those guerrillas, the Kosovar Liberation Army and the current government of Kosovo?

MICHAEL MONTGOMERY: Well, the allegation here from the Council of Europe report is that there’s a network that was created in the run up to the Kosovo war more than 10 years ago by a group of, I think, Albanian guerrillas and that network is essentially proliferated in postwar Kosovo.  To the extent that it has a significant grip on the control of institutions, ministries, the police and other elements in Kosovo and the allegation is that the figure at the center of that network and the report refers to him as something akin to a Mafia boss, is the current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi.

MULLINS: These are allegations only and these are not any charges that we’re talking about right now.  This is not a judicial investigation.  What we’re talking about is a leaked report that’s making these allegations that have been made in the past.  So, is there any new evidence?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, there is new evidence here.  And what, I think, is new is that the Council of Europe investigator, Dick Marty, appears to have penetrated the inner circle of this alleged network.  There is direct testimony, disturbing testimony that Mr. Marty’s team has gotten which describes the executions of prisoners, gunshots to the head and the removal of their bodies to makeshift clinics where their organs were extracted.

MULLINS: The Kosovo government is denying these charges.  What specifically is said to you or to Dick Marty, who wrote this report?

MONTGOMERY: Well, the Kosovo government and certainly Hashim Thaçi, we interviewed him last year, are strongly denying the allegations.  They say that these are allegations that have been around for years.  They say that they are based in part on Serbian propaganda or propaganda being circulated by people who were trying to derail Kosovo’s independence or besmirch the reputation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is widely respected in Kosovo, having many people believe liberated the province from Serbia.

MULLINS: Bring the United States into the conversation right now because the U.S. helped install and legitimize this government of Kosovo after the war with Serbia in 1999?

MONTGOMERY: Well, the report lays out this idea and we have seen this elsewhere.  We’ve seen it in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and that is that in order to ensure a kind of short term stability in a place that has experienced conflict, you sometimes have to do it, deal with the devil, so to speak, and you really have to not focus too much on justice or pursuing war crimes cases because your partners in building stability may very well be people who are implicated in some of these crimes. That doesn’t mean that the U.S. was necessarily aware of these macabre allegations of organ harvesting and covered them up.  On the contrary, there’ve been efforts by diplomats from a number of countries including the U.S. to try to get to the bottom of this. The problem is there are no structures to really take this on.  There’s no criminal investigative body that has the power to force Albania to cooperate or to force Kosovo or any of these other countries implicated in the trade, to cooperate.  And I think we may see calls for some kind of international criminal inquiry to take on these allegations.

MULLINS: That’s Michael Montgomery of the Center for Investigative Reporting.  He reported at length on these issues for our program last year.  You can hear his reporting at theworld.org.

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