Last night the state acknowledged the most scandalous theft in its history. $2.8 million has been stolen from the State Treasury The gold had not been inventoried for three years, although this should have been done every three months this should have been done every three months page 9

Yesterday, almost in a synchronized manner, the Government and the Prosecutor’s Office found the courage to publicly acknowledge the theft of the State Treasury, which the opposition and the independent press had brought to light months ago. Without dwelling on the value of what [continues outside the image]

Who ago. Without dwelling on the value of what is missing from the State Treasury, which is kept in the Kërraba area, and which, according to the statement issued yesterday by the Government Press Office, amounts to $2.8 million, what matters is the fact that it happened. The theft of the Treasury can be considered the final and greatest humiliation inflicted on the state in recent years. This is because no such incident is known to have happened in any other state, not even in Albania during the first half of 1997, when everything was destroyed. The second thing that is striking is the prolonged silence of the government and other state bodies, accompanied by efforts to deny what may be called “the theft of the century.” Thus, instead of the specialized state structures being mobilized, at least to verify the accuracy of the news about this unprecedented theft, the official propaganda tried to portray the Kërraba theft as “one of Berisha’s usual fabrications,” and a lawsuit for defamation against the newspaper “Koha Jonë” was even drafted at the offices of the Ministry of Public Order. Yet this silence and the efforts to keep the Treasury theft secret not only double the degree of culpability of those officials who are legally responsible for guarding the State Treasury, but also make all hypotheses about their involvement in the theft seem credible. Now nothing remains but to remove the tunnel where the Treasury is kept from the list of objects of special importance. The same can be said regarding the failure to comply with the criteria for periodic inspections of the place where the Treasury is located. Under the law, responsibility for safeguarding and securing the State Treasury lies with the Minister of Public Order and the Governor of the Bank of Albania. In any country in the world, even an underdeveloped one, resignation is the minimum step after such a scandal, but since we are in Albania, no prediction can be made about the response of the two officials mentioned above. No circumstance can absolve these two institutions. If the Treasury was stolen during the unrest of March ’97, as the “investigations” are likely to conclude, it matters little what should have been done, because under the law an inventory must be carried out once every three months. In fact, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, this did not happen: no verification has been carried out since February 1997. Indeed, two days before the government acknowledged the Treasury theft, three police officers were arrested, but the hand of the state must strike much higher. Given the repercussions of this theft, Prime Minister Meta must show clearly that he is determined to punish the guilty officials. Otherwise, when the opposition returns to power, it will be difficult for him to escape punishment as an accomplice.

Prime Minister Meta visited the police headquarters in the capital. There he declared that the police protect citizens’ lives and maintain public order, something the police officers had not known before. “Now that we’ve found out what the police are for, there will be no more crimes,” declared the capital’s police director, Bibil Mema. Humor by Filip Çakuli on pages 29–31