[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 68 (Thursday, May 23, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E894-E895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JOSEPH LIMPRECHT, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ALBANIA

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 22, 2002

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, we have received the news that 
United States Ambassador to Albania, Joseph Limprecht, died suddenly of 
a heart attack on Sunday, May 19, 2002, while hiking with his wife and 
colleagues in northern Albania.
  Although I did not have the opportunity to meet Ambassador Limprecht, 
I did correspond with him on an issue of mutual concern--the 
trafficking of Albanian women and children into sexual slavery in 
Europe.
  With porous borders and more than its share of criminals, Albania is 
used by traffickers as a key transit point to Italy. As a source 
country, young Albanian women are lured into the hands of traffickers 
and even kidnaped from their home towns or villages. The Ambassador was 
well aware of this tragedy and pressed for greater law enforcement to 
stop trafficking networks as well as greater assistance to the victims. 
Indeed, in keeping with the point of my correspondence with him, the 
Ambassador made sure U.S. assistance would go to a shelter for 
repatriated Albanian trafficking victims similar to one created for 
women found in Albania and waiting to be repatriated to their country 
of origin.
  Beyond that, the Ambassador worked hard in the three years he spent 
in Albania in helping the country recover from its many ills, in

[[Page E895]]

particular the civil strife which tore the country apart in 1997. Given 
Albania's vulnerability to militant Islamic infiltration, I am sure 
that the war on terrorism was in the forefront of his duties in recent 
months.
  Ambassador Limprecht was a member of the Senior Foreign Service, 
having served with the U.S. Foreign Service since 1975, with postings 
in Germany, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as well as in Washington. In the 
1980s, he served in the office which handled what was then the 
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and now the OSCE, and 
worked with the staff of the Helsinki Commission which I had just 
joined and now serve as Co-Chairman.
  My deepest condolences go to the Ambassador's wife, Nancy, their 
daughters Alma and Eleanor, friends and colleagues.

                          ____________________