Thomas Gambill, source for this story I wrote on Kosovo, reports he has been informed by trusted former collegues in the Balkans, that a $1 million price tag has been put on his head.The fact that Gambill was a whistleblower-in-waiting, sitting on tons of documents he brought back from his service as an OSCE security chief in the eastern region, was publicized by Chris Deliso, who met Gambill in Pristina. (Deliso writes for http://www.balkanalysis.com/ and http://www.anti-war.com/)
After I came across Deliso's comment on Gambill's 'readiness' I contacted Chris to get Gambill's contact info. After all, here was a guy just waiting to spill. My interest may have spurred Chris on as well, who then got hot to interview Gambill in detail. The more interviewing the merrier.
Now the story is some Albanian yahoo has put out a hit on Tom. One of the sources of the info wrote this to Tom:
"I did not have enough time to finish my massage [sic]...this [deleted] is on limited time. Take all necessary precautions... this one was and still is involved in arms smuggling to Kosovo and has been doing so for a long time. This you might find also very interesting...He was so bold in his actions that at one point he packed 50 caliber sniper on his flight to Kosovo and NO ONE said anything. I did not get his name but I got the following: age mid 60-ties to early 70-ties; owner of few companies in NY; now, my source was not clear if he is from Queens or Brooklyn. Strong indications point out to Queens."The irony is Gambill is not biased toward the Serbian or Albanain side. Over hours of conversations he told me in detail of the concerns of the Albanians he knew and cared about including the influx of Saudi Wahhabists who were ejecting Albanian schoolteachers from their classroom, and forcibly teaching the Koran; the offering of payment of 300-500 Deutche Marks/month to poor people to become observant Salafist Muslims; the offering of Saudi NGO's to provide humanitarian aid on the condition they be allowed to build a mosque in the village first, and so on. Gambill worked tirelessly to motivate higher-ups to address these concerns.
My appraisal is he is clearly not anti-Serb or anti-Albanian, but anti-corruption.
