The Serbian secret service BIA has denied media reports that it had hired a Serbian killer squad to assassinate former Council of Europe correspondent Dick Marty.
Dick Marty in 2011 during a Council of Europe debate in the Strasbourg Parliament
(dpa) “Such allegations unfairly do untold damage to the reputation of the BIA (…),” said an intelligence statement released by the state news agency Tanjug on Monday.
Last weekend, the “Tages-Anzeiger” reported for the first time that the Swiss authorities had placed Marty under comprehensive personal protection since December 2020. Accordingly, Marty was guarded around the clock at his place of residence in the canton of Ticino and accompanied when he appeared in public spaces. In some cases even elite soldiers are said to have been involved.
A little later, Marty confirmed this in an interview with French-language television RTS. In the program “Mise au point” he said: “The threat obviously comes from certain circles of the Serbian intelligence services, which (…) hired professional killers to liquidate me.” His assassination would then be blamed on Kosovo, Marty said.
Marty documented alleged war crimes by Kosovan militias
As a special rapporteur for the Council of Europe, he documented alleged war crimes by Kosovar militias in the 1998/1999 war of independence against Serbia. The charges brought by the Kosovo Special Court in The Hague in 2020 against the long-serving Kosovar President Hashim Thaci are also partly based on his findings. During the war he had commanded the Kosovo Albanian militia UCK.
Kosovo, which is now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, broke away from Serbia after the war, in which NATO intervened on the side of the Albanians. In 2008 it declared itself independent. To date, Serbia has not recognized this step.