Former Swiss Senator and Council of Europe (CoE) Rapporteur on the human organ trafficking in Kosovo, Dick Marty gave an exclusive interview to Belgrade-based Vecernje Novosti daily. Marty’s famous report on organ trafficking pointed to the possibility of monstrous crimes committed against Serbs in northern Albania involving the highest representatives of the authorities in Pristina.
Q: Eight years have passed since your famous report and indictments have still not been filed. Are you satisfied with the speed of the judicial investigation?
Marty: Your question already contains the answer. If I could finish my report in just over a year, they could have done it in the meantime. US prosecutor Clint Williamson publicly announced in July 2014 that the results reached by his investigative unit, which included forty highly qualified individuals, covered the essence of my report. He resigned immediately after that conference. We waited for his replacement for more than a year. Since then, his successor has also left. A third prosecutor was appointed, but there are still no results.
Q: Is someone doing this intentionally?
Marty: I cannot know that, but I can note that there was a series of appointments that significantly slowed down the work of the court. There are two dynamics which oppose one another. I am convinced that there are people who are honestly working on discovering the truth. I also think that there are political interests that want to stop it all. From the beginning, they believed that they would not find anything. Now they found themselves in a very uncomfortable situation due to the fact that the people they supported got involved in something so horrible.
Q: Do you believe that justice will eventually catch up with those responsible in the Pristina government?
Marty: I do not know what to say to you. They may not be condemned. You know, the largest number of war crimes in the world, unfortunately, remain unpunished.
Q: Can the judiciary be trusted, if former Hague Tribunal Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice, who is suspected of hiding evidence about the “Yellow House“, is now one of the main defenders of Kosovo’s leaders?
Marty: When I heard that, I thought there were two Geoffrey Nice. It is incomprehensible that the Deputy Chief Prosecutor in the Hague suddenly became a lawyer for the suspects. In the least case, that seems bizarre to me. Perhaps this is, from a legal side, possible, but personally, on an ethical side, I find it suspicious.
Q: In the end, what happened with the evidence? Carla del Ponte spoke that it exists and Nice that it does not exist…
Marty: I know that the evidence existed. Journalist Anthony Montgomery was present when Hague Tribunal investigators were in the “Yellow house“, collecting evidence. They did it, by the way, in an extremely amateurish way. For example, they did not analyze blood traces. But they found drugs, syringes and much more, and all this was sealed in the Tribunal.
Q: How is it possible that some of the main protagonists in your report still deal with high level politics in Kosovo?
Marty: How can I answer that? I wrote my report and, on the other hand, there is the political reality.
Q: Did Hashim Thaci sue you for defamation, as you suggested to him, if he believes that you did not write the truth?
Marty: He did not. In any case, I am convinced that such a lawsuit would be rejected. Not only because I, as a Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, enjoyed immunity, but also because I can confirm to you that my report is based on the testimonies of people who were directly involved in the described acts. There were even people who accused themselves!
Q: But, witnesses continue to fear for their lives…
Marty: You are, of course, familiar with Ramush Haradinaj’s case before the International Criminal Court. Each time the witnesses would disappear. There were mysterious deaths. I can fully understand that witnesses are afraid. I personally witnessed that. These people are terrified. They are afraid for their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. Almost twenty years have passed, new generations have grown up and all these people are not predestined to play heroes.
Q: Do you still receive threats?
In my new book, I write about a comic situation when, while I was in Bern waiting for a tram, I was approached by a man in front of the main railway station, who raised his finger and shouted at me, in German with a noticeable accent, that I wrote a scandalous report and started loudly accusing me that I received a million dollars from the Serbs for that! There was a lot of people around and everyone watched us with disbelief. I asked him would I really be there, in the cold, waiting for the tram, if I had received any money? Everyone laughed and he went away crestfallen. There were threats, but I would not like to talk about them.
Q: Everyone is pointing out that you are brave, which is undeniable. In the 21st century, unfortunately, we still have to talk about the courage of people who are just doing their job?
Marty: It is really not my intention to come out as being brave, because, as you said, I just did what was my duty. The issue is not that I am brave because I am doing what needs to be done, maybe cowards are those who do not do that. And these are different things. Only the truth about the conflict in Kosovo can lead to reconciliation. I only revealed it a little bit. There is still much work to be done in this field.
Original interview (in Serbian) can be seen at: http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/politika/aktuelno.289.html:773690-Dik-Marti-Hag-sklonio-sve-dokaze-o-zutoj-kuci
