U.S. Prosecutor To Investigate Kosovo Organ-Trafficking Allegations

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci

The European Union's Rule of Law (EULEX) mission in Kosovo has appointed a U.S. prosecutor to investigate allegations linking Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and other senior figures in Kosovo's leadership to organ trafficking.

EULEX said John Clint Williamson has been appointed lead prosecutor of its Special Investigative Task Force.

The allegations linking Thaci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander, to organ trafficking from Serb detainees in the aftermath of the 1998-1999 conflict between KLA guerrillas and Serb forces were contained in a Council of Europe report of December 2010 by former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty.

Williamson is currently an adviser on international justice to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

He has also been a U.S. envoy on war crimes and has worked at the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

compiled from agency reports