Daily: Ex-KLA’s defense financed with “dirty money”

Source: Beta

PRIŠTINA -- Kosovo’s Special Prosecution suspects that a part of the money spent on ex-KLA commander Fatmir Limaj’s defense came from criminal activities.

Fatmir Limaj (FoNet, file)

This is according to Priština-based Albanian language daily Koha Ditore.
Limaj's defense before the Hague Tribunal cost EUR 1mn and another EUR 1mn was spent for his defense in Priština in the case of war crimes in an illegal detention camp of the now disbanded ethnic Albanian terrorist group Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the village of Klečka.

EUR 1mn came from the Limaj Fund while prosecutors suspect that the second million came from criminal activities.

The Special Prosecution has indicted Limaj and two of his brothers, Demir and Florimi, for money laundering and they are facing up to ten years in prison and a fine three times bigger than the amount of the money suspected of being illegally obtained.

Kosovo’s Special Prosecution’s German Prosecutor Johannes Picker suspects that Limaj’s lawyer Karim Khan was paid with “dirty money”. Picker stated in the indictment that Demir Limaj had sold an unregistered property to Arbon Desku of Klina for EUR 500,000 in November 2011.

“In December 2011, Demir Limaj transferred EUR 316,900 and on January 12 another EUR 120,000 to the account of Fatmir Limaj’s attorney Karim Khan in the Netherlands,” the prosecutor said.

Khan was Limaj’s defense attorney in war crimes cases in The Hague and in Priština. Limaj was found not guilty for war crimes against Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the KLA camp in Lapušnik. He is facing a trial for kidnapping and murdering Serb civilians and members of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) in a KLA camp in Klečka in 1999 before the Priština court.