Albania’s Parliament to Probe Allegations of KLA Crimes

Albania's parliament voted on Thursday to set up an investigative committee to collect information on other investigations conducted by local and international bodies into alleged crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania in the war in Kosovo two decades ago.

The parliament will then present a resolution based on the findings.

It also aims to find out to what extent Albanian institutions and political leaders contributed to Dick Marty's highly critical Council of Europe 2011 report.

This accused former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, of carrying out gross human rights violations in both Kosovo and north Albania, where the KLA had bases.

The investigative committee follows Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama's attempt to boost his nationalist credentials by accusing opposition Democratic Party chief Lulzim Basha of betraying his nation by helping the UN to investigate alleged KLA crimes.

The commission is an initiative of Taulant Balla, the chairman of the Socialist Party Group, who, while presenting it last week, made little attempt to conceal the ultimate objective - "to clean the mud thrown against Albania and the KLA" by Marty and his report.

"I don't want to reach conclusions at this stage of this investigation," Balla told parliament on Thursday, "however, we all agree that in Albania no war crimes were carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army and there never been war crimes carried by the KLA in the territory of Kosovo either because we all agree that the war for freedom, the war for independence, the war for liberation is never a war crime."

The establishment of the commission comes after weeks of attacks by the Socialists under Prime Minister Rama against the opposition leader...

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