Kosovan lawyer Tome V. Gashi announced on his Facebook page that he had received a power of attorney from the Albanian Katuci family – the owner of the so-called ‘Yellow House’ to file a lawsuit against Dick Marty, Carla del Ponte, and Jose Pablo Baraybar. Gashi claims that Dick Marty entered this family’s home without authorization, misled the Council of Europe with his report on murders and organ trafficking, and deceived Kosovo institutions that voted for the establishment of the Special Court. He also alleged that the former Hague prosecutor used false information in her book and that a UNMIK official also stayed in the house illegally. Finally, he stated that the Special Court should be dissolved.
In a post titled „Defending Albania’s National Values, Defending the KLA, Against the Special Court“, the lawyer – who became well-known for defending the „Association of KLA Veterans“ – said that he is preparing to file criminal charges against Swiss Senator Dick Marty after receiving a power of attorney from Mersin Katuci.
He claims that Marty reportedly „secretly and while wearing a disguise“ stayed on the property and at Katuci’s home in the village of Gure (near the town of Burrel) in Albania.
„Although no evidence of human organ trafficking was found in the Katuci family’s home, Dick Marty deceived and misled the Council of Europe by claiming that during and after the war, KLA members allegedly kept hundreds of civilians, Albanians, Serbs, Roma, in this house, where they were tortured, killed, and their bodies used in international trade,“ this lawyer said.
„The false report of Dick Marty misled the Council of Europe, which authorized the US prosecutor within EULEX, Clint Williamson, to investigate these allegations, while 82 deputies of the Republic of Kosovo were misled in August 2015 without having the Clint Williamson report at all – they voted to form the Special Court,“ Gashi claims, adding that even Clint Williamson’s report „did not support Dick Marty’s false allegations.“
In December, this lawyer offered €10,000 to every Kosovo MP who showed him Clint Williamson’s report, alleging that none of them had ever read it.
Criminal charges and civil lawsuits will also be filed against the former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Carla Del Ponte due to the false information, as Gashi asserted, she used in her book about alleged KLA crimes – which Dick Marty later used for his famous report.
Criminal charges will also be filed against the head of the UNMIK Office on Missing Persons and Forensics, Jose Pablo Baraybar. According to Gashi, Baraybar visited the house of the Katuci family without authorization, searching for evidence of human organ trafficking, which he “never found.”
Gashi further alleges that, as a result, legal proceedings should be initiated for the dissolution of the Special Court created by „defamation and false statements“.
„Albania and Kosovo must know the truth, and the truth is that everything that Dick Marty falsely organized, which resulted in the formation of the Special Court, defamed the entire Albanian nation – through Dick Marty’s lies,“ he added.
„Kosovo was especially tainted, particularly former members of the KLA,“ he added.
Gashi also published an alleged statement of the Katuci family from Sunday:
„Dick Marty prepared a report and presented another accusation against this family without relying on any document. The search was conducted illegally, without any decision of the prosecution, on the territory of my house. Maybe the Albanian state knows those things but keeps them secret, maybe former prosecutor Arben Dyla and area inspector Astrit Perleshi know them. In these circumstances, Dick Marty was allowed by the police and a former member of the Albanian parliament to conduct an unauthorized search.“
He claims that Dick Marty used a „camouflaged car“, and that it was allegedly reported that the owner of the house reportedly prevented the authorities from searching it and that the authorities, that is, the police, came to remove Marty from his property.
On the other hand, he revealed that the former head of the UNMIK Office on Missing Persons, Jose Pablo Baraybar reportedly came to his property „looking for a house to rent.“
In his statement, he underlines that the Albanian state allowed the „unauthorized stay“ of both of them.
He also said that „foreigners forcibly entered with the prosecutor, broke the floor, destroyed our clothes, took us out in the cold on February 4th,“ where they were kept for 10 hours – without being shown a search warrant.
„They asked me about bloodstains, I told them that my children were born [there] and that we had cut meat,“ he said.
He also said that the whole village objected when the investigators wanted to carry out an exhumation at the cemetery in the village of Burrel.
Mersin Katuci also claimed that members of the „KLA“ or people from Kosovo have never passed through his property. He added that he is ready to „face Hashim Thaci and the others in The Hague to prove the lie told about his family.“
„They did not receive the reports of Dick Marty and Clint Williamson,“ nor the „apology of the Albanian state 16 years later.“
Former Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte, in her book „Mrs. Prosecutor,“ in which she wrote about her work in the Hague tribunal, also described the findings of the alleged crimes of the „KLA“. This report was one of the bases for the 2010 report of the former rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty. Marty’s report was confirmed by the US prosecutor Clint Williamson in 2014, after which the Special Court was formed in 2015.
The allegations of the Katuci family, repeated now by Gashi, are not new. Thirteen years ago Spiegel wrote about them, while tracing the path from Carla del Ponte’s book in which she described what they found in the house which was then allegedly painted yellow, stating that the family denied the allegations.
Four former high ranking KLA officials – as well as political leaders of Kosovo – primarily Hashim Thaci and Kadri Veseli, have been participating as part of the Hague Tribunal since the end of last year.
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