Kosovo's premier dismisses report branding him "mafia" boss

Kosovo's government has dismissed as "slanderous" a report for the Council of Europe that links Prime Minister Hashim Thaci to a "mafia-like" network involved in trade in heroin and human organs, DPA reported.

Details of the report, prepared by Swiss human rights investigator Dick Marty and due for release Thursday, were published Tuesday by The Guardian.

The report alleges that under Thaci politics, security and criminal activity have been combined to gain "violent control" over the entire Kosovo underworld.

"Allegations published by The Guardian were investigated more than once by local and international law-enforcement institutions, and each time it was determined that they were baseless," the government said in a state.

A network led by Thaci is involved in trade in heroin, arms and human organs, the report says. Kosovo Serbs were allegedly kidnapped and murdered to harvest their organs. Members of his inner circle are allegedly also involved, according to the report, based on a two-year investigation.

Thaci's cabinet threatened "all legal and political actions and measures" against Marty and urged members of the Council of Europe to reject the report.

Thaci is a former rebel leader who fought against Serbia's rule in Kosovo. He is already under pressure because of allegations of vote rigging in Sunday's parliamentary election in which his Democratic Party got the most votes.

"It is clear that somebody wants to shame Prime Minister Hashim Thaci after parliamentary elections in which citizens clearly and massively supported his programme for governing and developing our country," the government statement said.

In Belgrade, where Thaci was sentenced in absentia as a terrorist in 1997, a spokesman for the war crimes prosecutor's office, Bruno Vekaric, said Marty's leaked report was "victory" for Serbia.