Ticino’s former member of the Council of States and “mafia hunter” Dick Marty dies
Published: Thursday, Dec 28th 2023, 19:21
Updated At: Thursday, Dec 28th 2023, 19:21
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The former FDP member of the Council of States for the Canton of Ticino, public prosecutor and "mafia hunter" Dick Marty is dead. The former member of the Council of Europe and member of the OSCE Commission on Human Rights died at the age of 78.
Marty died on Thursday, a spokesperson for the FDP Switzerland told the Keystone-SDA news agency on request. Several media outlets had previously reported on the politician's death. According to the newspaper "Corriere del Ticino", Marty is said to have been diagnosed with cancer last April.
His death leaves an unbridgeable gap in the political and social landscape of Ticino, the Ticino FDP announced on Thursday. Marty was a personality of the highest caliber who had earned respect and esteem at national and international level over the years.
Swiss political luminary
"He worked tirelessly for an open Switzerland, human dignity and the rule of law," wrote Federal Councillor Alain Berset (SP/FR) on the X platform (formerly Twitter). Former party colleagues also expressed their sadness and paid tribute to the deceased. "Marty was a reference for his integrity, rigor and morals," wrote National Councillor Damien Cottier (FDP/NE), also on X.
Born in Lugano in 1945, the lawyer was a public prosecutor in Ticino from 1975 to 1989 and then a member of the cantonal government until 1995, before sitting on the Council of States from 1995 to 2011. From 1998, he was a member of the Council of Europe. There he made a name for himself as a special investigator into controversial CIA prisoner transports and secret prisons in Europe and illegal organ harvesting from prisoners in Kosovo.
"Mafia hunters" in the Kosovo war
As Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Marty published a report in 2010 on alleged war crimes committed by Kosovar militias during the war of independence against Serbia.
According to Marty's report, more than 400 Serbs and "non-loyal" Albanians were kidnapped after the war in Kosovo and taken to Albania. There, organs were illegally removed from them. Kosovo's then Prime Minister Hashim Taci compared Marty to Joseph Goebbels immediately after the allegations came to light. The former rebel leader rejected Marty's accusations.
The findings of the former member of the Council of States from Ticino were used in 2020 for the indictment in the Kosovo Special Court in The Hague against the long-standing Kosovan President Taci, who subsequently resigned from office.
Living under police protection
The former member of the Ticino Council of States lived under strict police protection for months. According to the "Tages-Anzeiger" newspaper, secret service involvement and murder plans against the former Ticino public prosecutor led to the security apparatus being tightened. The newspaper makes a connection to Marty's previous work as a special investigator on behalf of the Council of Europe for war crimes in Kosovo.
In an interview with RTS television in French-speaking Switzerland in 2022, Marty himself explained that the threat apparently came from certain circles within the Serbian secret service. They had ordered professional assassins to liquidate him so that they could then blame the Kosovars.
Marty as a book author
Marty was also President of the Interjurassic Assembly (IJA) from 2011 until its dissolution at the end of 2017. The body was formed to settle the Jura conflict. The Ticino native was also President of Switzerland Tourism from 1996 to 2007 and also worked part-time as a legal and economic advisor.
The former member of the Council of States from Ticino was also an author in his life. Marty published a total of six works in four languages. In his last work, "Verità irriverenti" (Engl. "Blunt Truths"), Marty wrote about personal strokes of fate, political and economic crises and wars that shook Switzerland and the world.
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