The Prosecutor’s Office’s charges against Xhaferi and Driza: Their schemes were pyramidal; theft and fraud were suspected New anti-pyramid law: 20 years in prison for fraudsters The Prosecutor’s Office’s charges against Xhaferi and Driza: Their schemes were pyramidal; theft and fraud were suspected A mountain of accusations against the loan-sharking bosses New anti-pyramid law: 20 years in prison for fraudsters Along with the foundation presidents detained by the police, 118 of their employees On page 7 Hundreds of thousands of dollars were seized during the operation at the offices and homes of the cashiers On page 7 Five special measures against pyramid schemes, approved yesterday by Parliament, come into force today On page 3 Parliament calls for the resignation of Finance Minister Bode and Prime Minister Meksi On page 3

Protest outside the Municipality SHKODËR - The protest began at 9:00. There were only a few people at first, but their number gradually grew. The motive for this action was: “We want our money,” along with accusations directed at the Government. A representative of the local Municipality also intervened, making a statement on its behalf in which the state was directly accused of wanting to use the deposited money to keep soaring inflation under control. In the statement, as well as by the hundreds of Shkodër residents protesting outside the Municipality, it was demanded that the money be distributed to the people immediately. In front of the Municipality, they are demanding that money be distributed ... to the people. Protests outside the Municipality (Photo H. Pustina)

XHAFERRI’S CONFESSION “My work, from the beginning until January 1997, has always consisted of collecting money from people and paying citizens’ installments from that same money collected from them. I think that such an activity, moving money in and out among the people, is called a pyramid scheme.” The people are called a pyramid. Shkodër, yesterday in front of Xhaferi’s counter (Photo: H. Pustina)

Gjinushi: “The case against us is political”

Discovery in Court: the case file has disappeared

Yesterday in Durrës (H. Pustina) The city “dresses” in blue On page 5

ELBASAN On page 5

Gjinushi: “The case against us is political” accusation: “The protest was illegal” TIRANA - The Prosecutor’s Office has initiated criminal proceedings against several opposition leaders. “Illegal organization of protests” is the charge now facing Mejdani, Gjinushi, Majko, Apostoli and others who took part in last Sunday’s rally in Tirana. The Social Democrat leader called the charge ridiculous and brought purely for political purposes. “Now all that remains is to outlaw the opposition,” Gjinushi said immediately after leaving the Prosecutor’s Office. On page 3 Petro Koçi, with his hair cut by the police

Discovery in Court: the case file has disappeared Xhaferi: he had been reported a year earlier TIRANA - The “Xhaferi” Foundation had been [illegible] ten months earlier? A great enigma surrounds the mysterious activity, now described by the prosecution as a pyramid scheme, involving theft through fraud. It was reported as early as April of last year by the State Control Service, and the Tirana court deemed its profit-making activity illegal—in other words, its loan-sharking activity. The foundation’s directors appealed this decision, but since then there has been no information about the “Xhaferi” file. The head of SHIK, Blerim Çela, has said that he does not remember such a thing, and that the report may have been made by a branch of the organization... Nevertheless, in April of last year the foundation was engaged—in fact, on a staggering scale—in taking money from citizens. On page 7

BUT WHAT IS THE STATE’S ROLE? Rama’s Beating: Who Will Answer for It? The unidentified assailants are still at large TIRANA — They thought it would be an ordinary night. Three intellectuals, Edi Rama, Delina Fico and Vladimir Myrtezaj, were making their way home peacefully when they suddenly felt themselves being struck treacherously; two of them were seriously bloodied. The third, Fico, was stunned by the bloody scene that had suddenly unfolded before her eyes. Rama is now suffering in bed as he tries to recover from the consequences of the absurd violence. We are not in some Latin American city, nor in a film scenario where the positive hero always wins. The event that took place these days in Tirana, the capital of a country that we have only just begun to describe as having happened in Tirana, the capital of a European state called a first-rate country. Albanians hoped they would be spared many evils. One of them — which they felt to be an evil — was precisely violence. A free press, the exchange of opinions and debate seemed to signal that the time had now “boiled over with freedom,” as young people say; that it had been overcome. But it seems the road to democracy is very long, and we have not yet managed to travel it, even though people were right beside one another, just a week before this person was savagely beaten, in the name of who knows what profession or idea. Rama’s case is not an isolated one. Other such beatings, to mention just one example, have also left people bloodied. To prevent accusations from continuing to fall on the state, the perpetrators of violence must be identified and all the bloodthirsty attackers brought to justice, especially before a court of this kind, advanced though it may be, where no one… all of this, above all, speaks to the fragility and vulnerability of democracy, and to the danger posed by violence of the same intensity. It is everyone’s duty — except for the bloodthirsty attackers — to say, once and for all: this is what Albania is really like. Edi Rama shortly after the beating Fatos Baxhaku

Shkodër, yesterday in front of Xhaferi’s counter (Photo: H. Pustina)