POCI: Politicians are not involved in smuggling
While SHIK and the Prosecutor’s Office investigate corrupt politicians
Yesterday the Minister of Public Order publicly stated that the Economic Crime Directorate has no evidence of politicians’ involvement
And yet, there will be changes
While both the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police have already begun uncovering several political figures suspected of being involved in trafficking and goods smuggling, yesterday the Minister of Public Order, Spartak Poci, made a surprising statement in which, among other things, he publicly claimed that politics is not mixed up in this phenomenon. “At the moment, despite the fact that the tendency has always been for various segments of politics to be criminalized, for us so far there are no such facts,” Minister Poci said. Regarding this statement, the minister was quite clear and consistent with what he presented to journalists. According to him, this does not mean that the phenomenon does not exist, but that it has not yet been documented in a way that gives it the form of execution backed by facts. According to the documentation held by the Economic Crime Directorate, state officials and persons with other functions who are not publicly known are suspected of having facilitated trafficking and smuggling. “Putting aside the term personal enmity, since what any individual can do even within the formal state and general order, the parties are clearly talking about slander over who is involved, payments or bribes, which is something completely different,” Poci is quoted as saying. Thus, in the first days of this week, work began on drawing up a nominal list grouping together people in high positions who may be in violation of the law. After selective checks, five or seven have been singled out, but if these too are confirmed, then we are dealing with work whose aim is not only middle-ranking officials and the ordinary administration. Prime Minister Pandeli Majko has also raised doubts about this high-level verification. This has not yet been completed, but some names have been sent to the Prosecutor’s Office for verification. Reliable sources from its files say that criminal investigations have been opened against three people and bank accounts are being checked. All the suspicions are not limited to heads of public administration; there have also been elected persons, members of parliament, high- and mid-level officials, which implies the involvement of politics in this activity. “With this discovery and stance, we see it more as a comparative aspect, where we observe that in cases where there is activity by officials too, the decision remains documented. In cases where there is payment or facilitation for such schemes, then the Prosecutor’s Office and the National Intelligence Service intervene,” Poci said. Although SHIK and the Prosecutor’s Office have already begun work to find political involvement in corrupt activity and smuggling, yesterday the Minister of Public Order tried to publicly affirm that as far as the ministry he leads is concerned, to this day there are no facts implicating this layer.
Corruption in Albania puts Europe on alert
The media and Majko with the OSCE ambassador and Evans, the Prosecutor General, called “Friends of Albania,” who met yesterday to analyze corruption in the Albanian state.
Suspicion in the case against the former leaders of the Guard
The Qerik ’97 massacre: the mystery of the Guard is uncovered
A legal squad had been created specifically to strike at the Republic in order to open the way for Berisha in the June 1997 election campaign