The government of Kosovo paid €500,000 to the company of Cherie Blair, the wife of Tony Blair, for legal counseling on the Special Court, the Pristina-based television T7 claims, the Gazeta Express portal reported.
Although all contracts between the Kosovo government and international companies are confidential, Kosovo Minister of Justice, Abelard Tahiri confirmed for T7 that the Kosovo government is receiving advisory services on how to behave towards Serbia during this process.
In addition, Kosovo also has advisors regarding documents and rules of the Special Court.
T7 reported that the director of one of the two companies advising the Kosovo government on issues related to the Special Court is Cherie Blair, the wife of the former Prime Minister of Great Britain. Cherie Blair is the founder and chair of law at the Omnia Strategy company, which, as this television claims, has been advising the Government of Kosovo for 9 months now, and whose half a million euro contract has recently expired.
London is a frequent place for consulting contracts
More than a year ago, the news was published about another half a million euro contract signed by the Kosovo government. More specifically, between the Kosovo President Hashim Thaci’s office and a lawyer from London and the former prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal for Yugoslavia, Geoffrey Nice, who was in the meantime hired as one of two defenders of Sami Lushtaku, who was questioned by the Special Prosecutor in the Hague in January.
At that time, Nice announced that he and his colleague Nevenka Tromp worked „in order for the Kosovo government to prepare material that no one will have access to, which will be used when individuals are accused by the Special Court“ and that they have not received the €490,000 payment.
This letter was the reason behind the formation of a parliamentary commission of the Assembly of Kosovo which is set to investigate all lobbying agreements signed by the Kosovo President while he was performing a number of public functions. Although it started operating, this commission had problems with the submission of the necessary documentation by the Kosovo President’s Cabinet, which only revealed that this institution has, in the last 24 months, signed contracts with foreign companies to the value of over €1.2 million.
The Pristina-based portal Insajderi recently published information about a much more modest contract in the amount of €12,000, which the deputy Prime Minister, Enver Hoxhaj from the PDK party, as a chairman of the Committee for Drafting of the Dialogue Platform, signed with another London lawyer, Marc Weller. A professor at Cambridge, Weller is the husband of Nora Visoka Weller, who is a relative of the former adviser of Enver Hoxhaj, Gezim Visoka, Insajderi reported.
While serving as foreign minister, during the time when Visoka was his consultant, Hoxhaj also signed a €40,000 contract with the Cambridge Academy of Global Affairs (CAMGA) in 2016, whose director is Nora Visoka Weller.
The Blair family is often linked with the Belgrade government
The head of the People’s Party (Narodna stranka), Vuk Jeremic said on the Novi Dan (New Day) talk show on N1 TV at end of last year that “the delimitation is being discussed more than ever” and that the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and one of the leading advocates of the bombing of FR Yugoslavia in ’99, Tony Blair is “negotiating on behalf of Serbia.”
The Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic and Blair’s Institute for Global Change soon denied these allegations.
In an email to KoSSev, signed by the spokesperson of the Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change, Julie Crowley, denials were contained in a one sentence response:
”Mr. Blair is absolutely not acting on behalf of the Serbia Government or President. Our Institute’s project is nothing to do with the Kosovo issue.”
A few weeks later, however, BIRN reported that the former UK prime minister’s institute is seeking to hire a senior advisor for a Belgrade posting, to ‘work closely and advise’ top officials on governance issues.
This competition was soon removed from the site of this Institute, and the Belgrade-based Insajder, despite numerous attempts and requests sent to the Government of Serbia to grant insight into contracts between the Government and this Institute, has so far only received a reply from Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabic that the services of this Institute are not paid from the budget of the Republic of Serbia.
Read more:
Blair Institute Recruits Advisor for Serbia Govt
Is Tony Blair negotiating on Serbia’s behalf? Vucic: My name is not Tony
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
