Albania to sign probe deal with EULEX investigators

TIRANA, Jan. 27 – The lead prosecutor of the European Union Special Investigative Task Force Clint Williamson visited Albania last week to meet with Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto and discuss with them advancing a legal framework for cooperation between Albania and the EULEX team.
Berisha pledged to institutionalize cooperation with the investigative team, which continues to work with relevant governments to put in place all the tools that are necessary to pursue an impartial and professional investigation into the organized crime and war crime allegations contained in the Council of Europe report of December 2010.
“This is a complex, multi-national investigation that will take time to complete,” said Williamson in a statement issued at the end of the visit, which followed a visit to Kosovo where he met with Xavier Bout de Marnhac, Head of Mission of the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), as well as other interlocutors within the mission.
Albania and the EULEX mission in Kosovo are poised to sign an agreement on cooperation in investigating allegations of human organ trafficking, Berisha said. Tirana has fully agreed that an agreement or law that would institutionalize cooperation between the Albanian authorities and EULEX was necessary to establish a clear framework which will help the EU mission fulfill its mandate in the probe.
This is Williamson’s second official visit to Albania.
In a report last year, a Council of Europe investigator alleged that Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and other rebel commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army ran detention centers on Albania’s border, where civilian captives were killed and their organs sold on the black market during Kosovo’s war for independence.
Thaci and Albania have denied the allegations.