A bad day

WHAT a terrible day for Albanians. Dick Martys report, containing allegations of murders for organ trafficking after the Kosovo war, has been adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. At the same time Miroslav Lajcak, a former Slovak foreign minister who now heads up Balkan affairs at the EUs new External Action Service, has been dispatched to Tirana in a bid to head off a fresh round of violence.

Yesterday there was a prelude to this misery. The Guardian claimed that it had seen intelligence documents produced "around 2004" from KFOR, the NATO force in Kosovo, alleging that Hashim Thai, Kosovos prime minister, was one of a triumvirate of the biggest fish in organised crime. According to the documents Xhavit Haliti, a major figure in Kosovo politics, was the power behind Hashim Thai and was involved in "prostitution, weapons and drugs smuggling.

Mr Haliti was also said to be linked to the 1997 murder in Albania of Ali Uka, a journalist who had voiced criticism of the Kosovo Liberation Army, in which both Mr Thai and Mr Haliti were leading lights. "He was brutally disfigured with a bottle and a screwdriver," the report says. "His roommate at the time was Hashim Thai."

The Guardian leaks appear to corroborate Mr Martys report, which alleges that Mr Thai was the leader of a mafia-like network which had seized violent control of the heroin trade and was linked to the kidnappings of Serbs and others, a handful of whom were murdered for their organs. Mr Thai says this is slanderous Serbian propaganda.

The report by Mr Marty, a Swiss politician and former prosecutor,! has had a devastating impact on Kosovos international reputation since it was issued in December. It has also had an insidious effect within the country. Ylli Hoxha, the executive director of the Foreign Policy Club, a discussion forum, says that debate in the country has degenerated. Either you support the official stance or you are classified as a traitor. The best thing, Mr Hoxha says, would be for Mr Thai to step down. But the prime minister has rejected that idea.

With Mr Marty's report now adopted by the Council of Europe, the baton passes to EULEX, the EUs police mission in Kosovo. It has said that if Mr Marty has fresh evidence he should give it to them. The organ-trafficking allegations were originally made in 2008 in a book co-written by Chuck Sudetic, who had worked as an investigator at the UNs Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Mr Sudetic says that EULEX cannot handle such a sensitive investigation, for several reasons: it does not have an adequate witness-protection programme, suffers from insecure IT systems, and uses local translators who are susceptible to threats and pressures on their families.

Under normal circumstances Albanians from Albania (rather than Kosovo) would be following these developments closely. Many of the crimes described by Mr Marty are alleged to have taken place on Albanian soil, and his report accuses Albanian authorities of not co-operating with investigations. But Albanians have a more pressing concern: avoiding a new cycle of instability and violence.

Albania has seen waves of protest since elections in June 2009, which the Socialist opposition alleges were rigged. On January 14th Ilir Meta, the deputy prime minister, resigned after the release of a video secretly filmed last March that appeared to show him putting pressure on another minister to secure a deal over a hydroelectric plant which would have seen them both benefi! t financ ially. Last Friday, as thousands gathered to protest, violence broke out and three demonstrators were shot dead, apparently by members of the Republican Guard.

Sali Berisha, the prime minister, said, Albania is not in a state of emergency and will not pass into a state of emergency. But scenarios of violence will not be tolerated. He has set up a parliamentary commission to investigate what he says was an attempted coup detat.

But the prime minister has found a quarry in the the prosecutor-general, who has issued warrants for the arrest of six members of the Republican Guard. Mr Berisha has rallied to their defence and given bonuses to the men on duty on Friday. But today the American ambassador to Tirana came out in support of the prosecutor, a bad sign for Mr Berisha in fanatically pro-American Albania.

Erion Veliaj, who is co-ordinating the opposition response to Mr Berisha's claims, says claims of a coup are ridiculous. Who has the firepower here? he asks, pointing out that three opposition supporters were killed and seven injured by guns, while the injuries to security forces were the result of hurled rocks and umbrellas. Both the opposition and supporters of Mr Berisha are planning new rallies.

This afternoon Mr Lajcak arrived in Tirana to help defuse the situation. His employer, the EU, still carries some clout here. Albanias political instability has stalled its work on EU integration, although its citizens were recently granted visa-free travel to Europes 25-member Schengen zone. This left the ever-more isolated Kosovo as the only country in the region outside of Schengen.