PRISTINA: The president of judges in the European Union's rule of law mission in Kosovo has announced his resignation while warning of corruption within the deployment, in an interview with French daily Le Monde published Thursday.
"In the past few weeks, I raised a number of concerns regarding corruption within the (EULEX) mission," British judge Malcolm Simmons told the newspaper.
"EULEX is not a rule of law mission. It is a political mission," he said.
In response to his comments, EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said that the allegations were being investigated and that she could not comment on specific accusations.
"The EU as well as EULEX operate a zero-tolerance policy towards allegations of inappropriate behaviour and all mission members... are accountable for their actions," she said.
Simmons accused the mission of wanting "certain individuals removed from political or public life".
He referred specifically to Fatmir Limaj, a former commander of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebel forces, who heads a party that was until recently in opposition to President Hashim Thaci.
Simmons, head of the EULEX panel of judges since 2014, said many of his colleagues were "decent and honest, with integrity" but faced "constant pressure".
"They don't fight the system, they just go along with it because they know that trying to do the right thing" would invariably lead to "trouble" for them, he told Le Monde.
Contacted by AFP about the accusations, an EU source in Pristina, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were "five investigations being conducted against (Simmons) by Brussels and independently from EULEX".
Two are in the final phase, the source said, without elaborating.
In October 2014, a British prosecutor at EULEX accused her colleagues of corruption, but Kosovo's special prosecution last year dismissed the allegations, according to local media reports.
EULEX, which employs about 800 people, was launched a few months after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
EULEX prosecutors and judges can step in and take on sensitive cases when requested by the local judiciary.