Deputy prosecutor: Thaci threatening witnesses

28 December 2010 | 09:37 | Source: Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekarić says the Kosovo Albanian PM was threatening witnesses and calling for their lynching. Bruno Vekarić (Tanjug, file) Hashim Thaci announced over the weekend that he would disclose the names of Albanians who helped the Council of Europe (CoE) Rapporteur Dick Marty prepare his report on human organ trafficking, which accuses Thaci and his KLA. “This is a dangerous and alarming announcement,” Vekarić told Tanjug, underlining that “it is very dangerous when someone who is about to be investigated, is threatening to disclose the names of witnesses.” “It is a call for lynching and a threat to witnesses,” said the deputy prosecutor for war crimes. Vekarić recalled that, under any law, and also in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), disrupting the proceedings is considered a criminal act. He expressed the opinion that the international factors should react to Thaci's statement. “In any case, we recognize here the very handwriting from other cases before The Hague Tribunal (the Haradinaj case), when the witnesses were simply disappearing under strange circumstances,” Vekarić said, adding that the war crimes prosecutor's office was “very concerned” over the statement by Thaci. In his report, Marty identified Thaci as the boss of a mafia-style group that controls much of the crime network in Kosovo and is responsible for trafficking weapons, drugs and human organs. In an interview for the Albanian TV Clan, Thaci said that there were witnesses and evidence to disclose the way Dick Marty's report was prepared, adding that, when the evidence is released, many people involved in that crime would “blush.” “When someone who said on the day before yesterday that he wanted an honest investigation suddenly starts speaking about how he would go public with a list of witnesses who had been cooperating with Dick Marty, I believe the person is really opposed to seeing the investigation conducted properly,” Vekarić explained. “Thaci is definitely aimed at concealing the truth by pressing the witnesses, while we want to get to the truth and find out who committed those monstrous crimes, who was capturing and killing people for trafficking in their organs,” Vekarić stressed.