Albania PM Calls Dick Marty Racist and Anti-Semitic

Berisha, speaking at a joint press conference with acting Kosovo President Jakup Krasniqi in Tirana, said that he believed Marty was a racist not because of his allegations of crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, but rather because of the way he described Albanian society.

“He has permitted to himself to use racist Serb stereotypes toward Albanians in a report of the Council of Europe,” said Berisha. “If you pay attention, for Marty Albanians are the ones snatching the organs and the Jews are the ones that receive them,” he added.

“It could not be a Russian or somebody else that received the trafficked kidneys, but it had to be a Jew,” Berisha said.

The Swiss MP released in December a report that linked former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, including Kosovo's Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, to organised crime and accused them of harvesting the organs of Serbian prisoners and others in Albania.

The Council of Europe Rapporteur criticised Albania for allegedly not cooperating in investigating the alleged abuses mentioned in the report.

A resolution based on the report, approved by the Council of Europe on December 16, is expected to go before the assembly for a vote on January 25.

The Albanian premier said that the best defense again such a slanderous report was his government's decision to call on EULEX and the Hague Tribunal to renew investigations into the allegations.