The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has contacted attorneys to consult them about pursuing a libel suit against Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty.
The official said Thaci is also considering suing the London-based Guardian newspaper, which first published the report.
Marty rocked Kosovo with his allegations made public Tuesday that civilian detainees of the KLA rebels were shot to death to sell their kidneys on the black market and suggesting that Thaci was once the “boss” of a criminal underworld behind the grisly trade.
Thaci was the rebel army’s political head during the 1998-99 war with Serbia, and his party just won Kosovo’s first general elections since it declared its 2008 independence. He has not appeared in public since the report was released, but his office said he was to address the media Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe human rights panel for whom Marty conducted the investigation voted to recommend international and national investigations into the report, it said in a statement Thursday.
The council’s legal affair committee accused international organizations of being aware of the crimes, but looking the other way “to promote short-term stability at any price.”
The council will debate the report on Jan. 25.
Agron Bajrami, head of Kosovo’s largest daily, Koha Ditore, argued that Marty’s report will have consequences for Kosovo’s Western backers because “it alleges that everybody somehow conspired to hide these terrible crimes.”
NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to make it stop its brutal crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians.
Marty, a Swiss senator, led a team of investigators to Kosovo and Albania in 2009, following allegations of organ trafficking published in a book by former UN War Crimes tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte who said she was given information by Western journalists.
Marty’s investigation found that there were a number of detention facilities in Albania, where both Kosovan opponents of the KLA and Serbs were allegedly held once the hostilities in Kosovo were over in 1999, including a “state-of-the-art reception center for the organized crime of organ trafficking.”
EU investigators looking into claims that organ harvesting took place in northern Albania have said they found no proof of the allegations.
The EU police force in Kosovo on Wednesday called for those with evidence to come forward.
