By Fatos Bytyci
PRISTINA (Reuters) - A rogue prosecutor, leaked papers and a judge taking to primetime television to deny being bribed – standard fare in the Balkans, where corruption and judicial skulduggery are a part of everyday life.
The characters in this drama, however, are British and Italian, hired by the European Union to embed the rule of law in the graft-riddled state of Kosovo, where the EU mission was established after its 2008 declaration of independence.
For the past month, EULEX, the EU's biggest and most expensive mission beyond its own borders, has been rocked by allegations of high-level corruption and collusion with Kosovar criminals. The revelations have been drip-fed to the press in leaked documents and explosive interviews.
The EU insists it is investigating, denying accusations of a cover-up. The bloc's new foreign policy chief, five days in the job, said on Tuesday she would appoint an independent expert to examine the allegations.
But the controversy has already done untold damage to the mission's credibility among those it is supposed to serve.
"To repair the damage and save the mission, the response to the scandal must be quick and it must be transparent," said Marko Prelec of the Balkan Policy Research Group. "This has gone far beyond the scope of public relations exercises; the EU owes the Kosovars, their hosts, the truth about all this."
Western diplomats say EULEX has long struggled to stamp its authority on Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian former guerrilla fighters are in power, witness intimidation is rife and clan loyalties frequently trump the rule of law.
Declaring herself a whistleblower, British prosecutor Maria Bamieh has gone public with what she says is evidence against senior members of EULEX suggesting they may have been bribed in cases of murder and graft handled by EU prosecutors and judges.
Bamieh says she was blacklisted when she submitted her findings in mid-2012 and that EULEX covered up the case.
"They decided to shoot the messenger rather than deal with the message," said Bamieh, who made headlines in Britain in 2003 when the Guardian newspaper reported she had been paid more than 250,000 pounds by the Crown Prosecution Service to settle a claim for race and sex discrimination and victimisation.
"EULEX needs a big shake-up, it needs to be investigated, it needs to be changed," Bamieh, who EULEX says has been suspended on full pay, said in an interview with Reuters last week.
"ENOUGH CORRUPT POLITICIANS"
EULEX denies any cover-up; it says an investigation has been going on since 2013 and that the immunity of one person involved has been partially lifted, without going into details.
The scandal has posed an unwelcome early challenge to the mission's head, Italian diplomat Gabriele Meucci, who took up his post in mid-October, and the EU's new foreign policy chief, former Italian foreign minister Federica Mogherini, who started her job on Nov. 1.
"Every day we read something new and very interesting." Meucci told a news conference last week. Mogherini said on Tuesday she would appoint an "independent and experienced legal expert to review the mission's mandate implementation, with a particular focus on allegations of corruption".
The EU deployed the mission in 2008 after Kosovo seceded from Serbia, arguing that the new Balkan country could not handle sensitive cases of organised crime, war crimes and high-level corruption on its own. The mission numbers 1,600, around half of whom are foreigners, down from an initial 3,000. It costs around 111 million euros per year.
Bamieh has painted a picture of a mission compromised by its cosy relationship with a small, tight-knit political elite, dominated by former fighters in Kosovo's 1998-99 guerrilla war to break away from Serbia.
"I have learned to guard my evidence from my managers because my managers go to dinner parties, to social events, with politicians of Kosovo, and they chat and things get out."
Italian Francesco Florit, a former EULEX judge, took to Skype on a popular evening news programme last week to defend his record, denying he had taken 300,000 euros to acquit defendants in a mafia-linked bombing case.
"These accusations are totally ungrounded. I have never received, never been offered any bribe from anybody," he said.
Members of the European Parliament involved in the Balkans have warned that the bloc's credibility there is at stake.
Austrian parliamentarian Ulrike Lunacek was quoted on Wednesday as saying the EU's demand for the countries of the western Balkans to root out graft and build the rule of law would become "a farce".
"We have enough corrupt Kosovo politicians," said 56-year-old Sadik Gashi, a miner in the capital Pristina. "We don't need any m
By Fatos Bytyci
PRISTINA (Reuters) - A rogue prosecutor, leaked papers and a judge taking to primetime television to deny being bribed – standard fare in the Balkans, where corruption and judicial skulduggery are a part of everyday life.
The characters in this drama, however, are British and Italian, hired by the European Union to embed the rule of law in the graft-riddled state of Kosovo, where the EU mission was established after its 2008 declaration of independence.
For the past month, EULEX, the EU's biggest and most expensive mission beyond its own borders, has been rocked by allegations of high-level corruption and collusion with Kosovar criminals. The revelations have been drip-fed to the press in leaked documents and explosive interviews.
The EU insists it is investigating, denying accusations of a cover-up. The bloc's new foreign policy chief, five days in the job, said on Tuesday she would appoint an independent expert to examine the allegations.
But the controversy has already done untold damage to the mission's credibility among those it is supposed to serve.
"To repair the damage and save the mission, the response to the scandal must be quick and it must be transparent," said Marko Prelec of the Balkan Policy Research Group. "This has gone far beyond the scope of public relations exercises; the EU owes the Kosovars, their hosts, the truth about all this."
Western diplomats say EULEX has long struggled to stamp its authority on Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian former guerrilla fighters are in power, witness intimidation is rife and clan loyalties frequently trump the rule of law.
Declaring herself a whistleblower, British prosecutor Maria Bamieh has gone public with what she says is evidence against senior members of EULEX suggesting they may have been bribed in cases of murder and graft handled by EU prosecutors and judges.
Bamieh says she was blacklisted when she submitted her findings in mid-2012 and that EULEX covered up the case.
"They decided to shoot the messenger rather than deal with the message," said Bamieh, who made headlines in Britain in 2003 when the Guardian newspaper reported she had been paid more than 250,000 pounds by the Crown Prosecution Service to settle a claim for race and sex discrimination and victimisation.
"EULEX needs a big shake-up, it needs to be investigated, it needs to be changed," Bamieh, who EULEX says has been suspended on full pay, said in an interview with Reuters last week.
"ENOUGH CORRUPT POLITICIANS"
EULEX denies any cover-up; it says an investigation has been going on since 2013 and that the immunity of one person involved has been partially lifted, without going into details.
The scandal has posed an unwelcome early challenge to the mission's head, Italian diplomat Gabriele Meucci, who took up his post in mid-October, and the EU's new foreign policy chief, former Italian foreign minister Federica Mogherini, who started her job on Nov. 1.
"Every day we read something new and very interesting." Meucci told a news conference last week. Mogherini said on Tuesday she would appoint an "independent and experienced legal expert to review the mission's mandate implementation, with a particular focus on allegations of corruption".
The EU deployed the mission in 2008 after Kosovo seceded from Serbia, arguing that the new Balkan country could not handle sensitive cases of organised crime, war crimes and high-level corruption on its own. The mission numbers 1,600, around half of whom are foreigners, down from an initial 3,000. It costs around 111 million euros per year.
Bamieh has painted a picture of a mission compromised by its cosy relationship with a small, tight-knit political elite, dominated by former fighters in Kosovo's 1998-99 guerrilla war to break away from Serbia.
"I have learned to guard my evidence from my managers because my managers go to dinner parties, to social events, with politicians of Kosovo, and they chat and things get out."
Italian Francesco Florit, a former EULEX judge, took to Skype on a popular evening news programme last week to defend his record, denying he had taken 300,000 euros to acquit defendants in a mafia-linked bombing case.
"These accusations are totally ungrounded. I have never received, never been offered any bribe from anybody," he said.
Members of the European Parliament involved in the Balkans have warned that the bloc's credibility there is at stake.
Austrian parliamentarian Ulrike Lunacek was quoted on Wednesday as saying the EU's demand for the countries of the western Balkans to root out graft and build the rule of law would become "a farce".
"We have enough corrupt Kosovo politicians," said 56-year-old Sadik Gashi, a miner in the capital Pristina. "We don't need any more of them."
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels; Editing by Matt Robinson/Mark Heinrich)