The Controversial Legacy of Dick Marty in Kosovo

Dick Marty, the author of an infamous report in 2010 entitled 'Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human Organs in Kosovo', has been back in the headlines this month.

Issuance of the 'Marty report' has proven to be one of the most significant events in Kosovo history over the last dozen years. And while his name may be less familiar now than it was back then - at least until very recently - the legacy of Dick Marty, love him or loathe him, looms large in Kosovo's political and legal affairs.

Allegations were recently published that Marty was the subject of a foiled assassination plot by the Serbian intelligence services in December 2020, and since then has been living under armed guard by Swiss police and rarely leaves his house, and then only when wearing a bulletproof vest. Unsurprisingly, the Serbian authorities have vigorously denied the allegations.  

This strange situation will require further investigation, but in the meantime, Marty's significant influence on the course of recent history in Kosovo is worth revisiting in detail, so let's take a look back at his report and see why it became so significant. 

The report was issued after a team of investigators, headed by Marty himself, had completed a two-year investigation from 2008-10 on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where Marty served as a senator from Switzerland. The investigation targeted previous allegations made by Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, which she published in her memoir, Madame Prosecutor in 2008.  

Del Ponte's claims of heinous crimes committed by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, including rampant human organ trafficking...