Kosovo’s prime minister accused of criminal connections in secret Nato documents leaked to the Guardian

* Paul Lewis
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 January 2011 18.34 GMT
* Article history
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n the documents, Thaçi is identified as one of a triumvirate of “biggest fish” in organised criminal circles. So too is Xhavit Haliti, a former head of logistics for the KLA who is now a close ally of the prime minister and a senior parliamentarian in his ruling PDK party. Haliti is expected to be among Kosovo’s official delegation to Strasbourg tomorrow and has played a leading role in seeking to undermine the Marty report in public.

However, the Nato intelligence reports suggest that behind his role as a prominent politician, Haliti is also a senior organised criminal who carries a Czech 9mm pistol and holds considerable sway over the prime minister.

Describing him as “the power behind Hashim Thaçi”, one report states that Haliti has strong ties with the Albanian mafia and Kosovo’s secret service, known as KShiK. It suggests that Haliti “more or less ran” a fund for the Kosovo war in the late 1990s, profiting from the fund personally before the money dried up. “As a result, Haliti turned to organised crime on a grand scale,” the reports state.

They state that he is “highly involved in prostitution, weapons and drugs smuggling” and used a hotel in the capital, Pristina, as an operational base. Haliti also serves as a political and financial adviser to the prime minister but, according to the documents, is arguably “the real boss” in the relationship. Haliti uses a fake passport to travel abroad because he is black-listed in several countries, including the US, one report states.

Haliti is linked to the alleged intimidation of political opponents in Kosovo and two suspected murders dating back to the late 1990s, when KLA infighting is said to have resulted in numerous killings.

One was a political adversary who was found “dead by the Kosovo border”, apparently following a dispute with Haliti. A description of the other suspected murder – of a young journalist in Tirana, the Albanian capital – also contains a reference to the prime minister by name, but does not ascribe blame.

Citing US and Nato intelligence, the entry states Haliti is “linked” the grisly murder, going on to state: “Ali Uka, a reporter in Tirana, who supported the independence movement but criticised it in print. Uka was brutally disfigured with a bottle and screwdriver in 1997. His roommate at the time was Hashim Thaçi.”

Haliti is also named in the report by Marty, which is understood to have drawn on Nato intelligence assessments along with reports from the FBI and MI5.

Marty’s report includes Haliti among a list of close allies of Thaçi said to have ordered – and in some cases personally overseen – “assassinations, detentions, beatings and interrogations” during and immediately after the war.

Haliti was unavailable for comment. However, in an interview with the media outlet Balkan Insight last week he dismissed the Marty report as “political” and designed to “discredit the KLA”. “I was not surprised by the report. I have followed this issue for years and the content of the report is political,” he said.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/hashim-thaci-kosovo-organised-crime

“NATO knew Hashim Thaci was criminal”
25 January 2011 | 09:30 -> 09:36 | Source: BBC, Guardian.co.uk
LONDON — A London newspaper has published leaked NATO documents that describe Kosovo Albanian PM as one of the “biggest fish” in organized crime in Kosovo.

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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=01&dd=25&nav_id=72322

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/25/world/crisis-balkans-separatists-leaders-kosovo-rebels-tied-deadly-power-play.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Nun der Europarat Bericht, über die Hashim Thaci Verbrecher Bande mit Organ Handel

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/APFeaturesManager/defaultArtSiteView.asp?ID=964

http://wikileaks.org/leak/bnd-kosovo-feb-2005.pdf

Und: «Thaçi gilt neben Haliti [?] als Auftraggeber des Profikillers Afrimi», auf dessen Konto mindestens elf Auftragsmorde gehen sollen.

Am 7 September 2007 ernannte der Albanische Präsident Bamir Topi, den von Hashim Thaci ermordeten Journalisten Isuf Ali Uka und Appartment Mit Bewohner zum Ehren Titel “Märtyrer der Demokratie”

Presidenti Topi dekoron z. Isuf Ali Uka (pas vdekjes) me Medaljen “Martir i Demokracisë”.

7 shtator 2007

Presidenti i Republikës, Bamir Topi i akordoi z. Isuf Ali Uka (pas vdekjes) Medaljen “Martir i Demokracisë” me motivacionin: “Për kontributin e tij të shquar në vendosjen e proceseve demokratike në rrethin e Matit; Për mbrojtjen e vlerave të lirisë dhe demokracisë, duke dhënë dhe jetën në moshën më të bukur”.

http://www.president.al/shqip/info.asp?id=3636

The reporter, Ali Uka, was supportive of the rebel movement, but also independent enough to criticize it. At the time of his death he was sharing his apartment with Thaci.
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The arms smuggling mushroomed into a huge operation that saw trucks loaded with weapons, most bought from Albanian officials, headed for rebel camps on the border. By the war’s end, former and current rebel officials estimate, the guerrilla force paid $50 million to Albanian officials for weapons and ammunition.

In April 1998, a rebel commander who transported many of the weapons, Ilir Konushevci, accused Haliti of profiting from arms transactions, according to commanders present at the heated meeting. A few days later, he was ambushed and killed on the road outside Tropoja in northern Albania.

The commander had charged that Haliti was buying boxes of grenades at $2 apiece and charging the movement $7 for each grenade. The killing, although it took place in a rebel-controlled region in northern Albania, was blamed on the Serbs. …………….

The most experienced was a former colonel named Ahmet Krasniqi who had organized some 600 former officers, most living in Switzerland and Germany, to join the fight. Krasniqi had surrendered his garrison in Gospic, Croatia, in 1991 rather than defend Slobodan Milosevic’s Government in Belgrade.

Other killings of rebel commanders and political rivals ascribed to Thaci are attributed to a struggle to consolidate control and eliminate potential challengers.

“Cadavers have never been an obstacle to Thaci’s career,” said Bujar Bukoshi,
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Albanian Authorities Accused of Collusion

As tensions rose, Thaci and the Albanian authorities decided to eliminate Krasniqi, according to former rebel commanders and two former Albanian officials interviewed in Tirana.

They said that in the middle of September 1998, Albanian police stopped Krasniqi and several aides and confiscated their weapons. Krasniqi’s office in Tirana was raided by about 50 policemen and emptied of guns and munitions. On Sept. 21 at 11 P.M. on the way back from a restaurant in Tirana, Krasniqi ran into a police checkpoint about 300 yards from his office on Dibra Street, according to a former rebel commander who was with Krasniqi. Krasniqi and his two companions were again frisked for weapons and their vehicle was searched. The two cars behind Krasniqi, which carried aides, were not allowed through the checkpoint.

When Krasniqi and his two companions got out of their gray Opal jeep they saw three men emerge from the shadows with black hoods over their faces. The men, speaking with an Albanian accent that distinguished them from Kosovo Albanians, ordered the two men with Krasniqi to get down on the ground.

“Which one is it?” asked one of the gunmen, according to one of the commanders who was prone on the asphalt.

“The one in the middle,” said another. The gunmen, who held a pistol a few inches from Krasniqi’s head, fired a shot. He then fired two more shots into Krasniqi’s head once he fell onto the pavement.

American officials also had reports that the rebel army had killed Krasniqi, but said there were also subsequent, conflicting reports from the region that he was killed by disaffected members of his own unit.

After Krasniqi’s death, former rebel commanders said, the killings, purges and arrests accelerated. Rebel police, dressed in distinctive black fatigues, threw into detention anyone who appeared hostile to Thaci. Many of these people were beaten.

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freerepublik

Hashim Thaci mit praktisch Null Schulbildung ist einfach ein Witz und jeder weiss es!

Ein Albaner sprach über Thaci ,wie unhebildet er sei und wie er schon in der Schule agressiv war ,Händler beklaute ,serbische Polizisten tötete ,Läden überfiel etc.

Zitat:

….Er fuegte noch hinzu, dass es den Albanern sicherlich auch in Zukunft nicht besser gehen werde.
“Wir wissen ja wer er ist. Wir wissen, was er gemacht hat und wie in der Schule war, ueber was fuer Kenntnisse er verfuegt. Der gesamte staedtische Makrt in Kosovska Mitrovica hatte grosse Probleme mit Thaqi, der von den Haendlern Waren stahl, aber auch die Kaeufer beklaute. Er schleppte Listen, pruegelte sich in den Wirtshaeusern in Mitrovica und Srbica. Er hat ueberhaupt keine Bildung. Er hat nur zwei Klassen irgendeiner Mittelschule absolviert, heute aber sitzt er mit Weltpolitikern zusammen, so dass nicht gerade klar ist, worueber eigentlich die sich mit ihm unterhalten koennen”, sagte Osmani.

Eine solche Förderung ist nur möglich, wenn Deutsche Politiker erpressbar sind u.a. mit Frauen Geschichten und anderen dunklen Machenschaften!

Gleichzeitig dürfte er im Kosovo noch eine andere Rolle spielen. Seine vermuteten, aber juristisch nicht bewiesenen Verbindungen zu kriminellen Organisationen, das behauptet der BND, resultieren aus seinen Verbindungen zur Drencia-Gruppe. Außerdem sollen „direkte Kontakte zur tschechischen und albanischen Mafia bestanden haben.“ Seine Schwester sei zudem mit Sejdija Bajrush verheiratet, einem der Bosse der albanischen Mafia.

Mitte 2003 wurde Thaci, so der BND, kurzfristig, auf Grund eines internationalen Haftbefehls, in Ungarn festgenommen. Wenig später aber, auf Intervention eines bekannten ungarischen Geschäftsmanns, der sich im Treibstoffhandel im Gebiet Vojvodina engagiert, wieder freigelassen.

Als Hintergrund schreibt der BND in einem internen Bericht: „Die in Ungarn operierende Russenmafia soll der OK im Kosovo die Durchführung größerer Drogen-, Waffen und Warentransporte angeboten haben.“ Und er soll, so der BND, „im Zusammenhang mit umfangreichen Drogen- und Waffenhandelsgeschäften im Oktober 2003 in engem Kontakt zur Kelmendi-Familie“ gestanden haben, die bekanntlich auch in Deutschland und der Schweiz einen Stützpunkt aufgebaut hat.

http://www.sicherheit-heute.de/politik/organisierte_kriminalitaet,182,Die_albanische_Mafia_in_Deutschland,news.htm