Former rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, who investigated the crimes of the so-called KLA and human organ trafficking in Kosovo and Metohija, died at the age of 79, announced the Liberal-Radical Party of Switzerland.
In 2010, he published a report on suspected organ trafficking in Kosovo, involving high-ranking members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The report talks about the involvement of KLA members in kidnappings, murders and organ trafficking in Kosovo and in the "yellow house" in Albania.
In the report, which was adopted by the Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty accused then Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci as the head and his close associates as members of an Albanian criminal group that smuggled human organs, weapons and drugs throughout Europe.
According to the report, Thaci, as the commander of the KLA from 1999 to 2000, ordered and in some cases oversaw those crimes in Kosovo and on the territory of Albania. In that report, it is claimed that around 500 Serbs kidnapped in Kosovo were transferred to Albania, where, after the murder, their organs were removed.
The investigation of crimes in Kosovo and Metohija and in Albania was launched in June 2008 after Carla del Ponte's book, in which she pointed out that she was prevented from investigating the crimes of KLA members who are now statesmen of the Republic of Kosovo.
Marti has been under special protection in recent years due to death threats he received.
Fighter against organized crime
Dick Marty was born on January 7, 1945 in Sorengo, Switzerland.
He was almost blind as a child and says that from that difficult period, he still has the tendency to face challenges. He got his sight thanks to corrective exercises, and that only when he started school.
He graduated from the Faculty of Law in Neuchâtel, and received his doctorate in Freiburg (Germany).
For decades, he has been dedicated to the fight against organized crime and the protection of human rights.
In his country, he was elected politician of the year in 2006.
He wasn't just a politician.
Marty was not only involved in politics and law. In 1996, he was the president of the Tourist Association of Switzerland, and he is still the president of the Scouts and Mountaineers of Switzerland.
After graduation, from 1972 to 1975, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign Policy and International Criminal Law in Freiburg, Germany.
He also worked at the University of Neuchatel, Germany.
In 1975, he was appointed state prosecutor of Ticino Canton and gained a reputation in the fight against organized crime. He opened several big affairs. The most famous was the "Pizza Connection", after which the then Swiss Minister of Justice Elisabeth Kopp resigned due to her husband's involvement in money laundering. He worked as a public prosecutor in the canton of Lugano for 12 years and for a time shared an office with Carla del Ponte.
He has received several awards for fighting crime, even from the US Department of Justice (USA Award of Honor 1987).
About secret prisons
He started in the Liberal-Radical Party of Switzerland. In 1989, he was elected as a member of the executive council of Canton Ticino, where he was the director of the finance department. He was a member of the Swiss Council of States (since 1995) and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 1998, where he was also involved in several committees and commissions, and is the second deputy chairman of the Committee for Political Affairs.
He was also known for his report on America's secret prisons in Europe. Namely, in 2005, after the intervention in Afghanistan, Dick Marty was appointed to lead the Council of Europe's investigation into the CIA's secret prisons in Europe and to investigate violations of European human rights standards. He took up the challenge and in a June 2006 report presented evidence showing that 14 European countries had indeed aided and abetted abuses and illegally held and tortured prisoners suspected of terrorism.
In that report, Dick Marty emphasized that the Council of Europe's Committee against Torture had not received permission from NATO and the international authorities in Kosovo to visit the prisons there until the report was submitted. "Then with what legitimate right and with what credibility does the international community teach Serbia lessons?" asked Dick Marty at the time.
