Bufi: corruption in the privatization of steel ON PAGE 5

The Tirana Court caught between a purge and a reshuffle ON PAGE 4

He had been accused in connection with last year's events in Shkodër ON PAGE 4

Special prosecutors remove the shackles from the August political prisoners Halit Shamata, Blerim Çela, Safet Zhulali, Kreshnik Lushaj, Bujar Rama, Sokol Mulosmani to be out of house arrest as of tomorrow. The senior leaders of the democratic government will remain under investigation ON PAGE 2

The Contact Group decides to extend until Tuesday the deadline for signing the agreement on Kosovo. Millosheviçi responds with artillery at Rambouillet Clinton writes to Yeltsin: “NATO is ready to attack Serbia.” Brussels concerned by Serbian military movements. Hundreds of Albanians abandon their homes. Mass evacuation of Westerners in Belgrade is being prepared By Mero BAZE, Rambouillet, 20 February ON PAGE 6

After the Democratic Party’s exposure of the intrigues, after the rallies of thousands upon thousands of Democrats throughout the country, and after pressure from the international community, political prosecutors were forced yesterday to release from prison six former senior leaders of the democratic government, who had been in the grip of the neo-dictatorship for more than six months. Albania’s political prosecutors thus recorded their first failure in their mission to destroy democratic developments in Albania, to ... subjugate the democratic center to the state and regional mafia, and to destabilize the country and turn it into an oasis of civil unrest. From the day the prosecutors, acting under a decree by former Prime Minister Fatos Nano, ordered the arrest of former Interior Minister Halit Shamata, former Defense Minister Safet Zhulali, former Chairman of the State Audit Office Blerim Çela, as well as Bujar Rama, Sokol Mulosmani and Kreshnik Lushaj, they also made clear their political allegiance and their aim of turning left-wing rule as quickly as possible into a violent, typical secret-police-style, neo-dictatorial regime. The arrest of all six was only the beginning of an investigative adventure, inherited from the dictatorship, against democracy in Albania. A few days later, they would feign ignorance about the murder of Azem Hajdari, after having tried to eliminate him through sham trials and the arrests of his relatives, bodyguards and friends. The political prosecutors would seek the arrest of opposition leader Sali Berisha over events dating back seven or eight years, while signing around a hundred arrest warrants for activists, members and leaders of the Democratic Party in Tirana and throughout the country. At the same time, the political prosecutors would become an obstacle, sabotaging and punishing investigations into smuggling and corruption, thereby placing themselves directly at the service of the mafia. Throughout their campaign against the opposition—that is, during their time in office since the Socialists came to power—they did not convict a single trafficker, murderer, smuggler or mafia figure. In a country where around fifty murders took place each month and where the state was robbed of around 200 million dollars in six months, the political prosecutors began issuing statements and calls against the opposition leader without making even the slightest effort to catch a criminal who had escaped justice. On the contrary, their leader, Fatos Nano, was often declared innocent as if he were a foreman, while the special chief prosecutor had Coca-Cola bottles filled with cocaine in an attempt to incriminate former leaders of the democratic government. Although the six will remain under investigation, this is nevertheless a victory for democracy in its confrontation with the medieval representatives of dictatorship, with representatives of the mafia and the methods of the state security service. Today is the day they began to fall. Their downfall must not be halted until the Albanian environment is freed of people like them, who for two years did every evil they could. The great Democrats must continue their resistance until the ridiculous charges brought against them by the political prosecutors are dropped, and until all political prisoners in Albania are released. Dozens of others are still in prison, including the legalist party chairman, Eqrem Spahia. It is the duty of Democrats to stand up to the political prosecutor’s office and other sectors of state life until Albania is cleansed of such prosecutors and finally becomes a country without political prisoners.

Thousands of Tirana residents, on the day the symbol of the communist dictatorship was toppled, call on the great powers to grant independence to Kosovo! ON PAGE 3

Statement by the Democratic Party: The release of all six, another absurdity by the political prosecution

On Monday, a funeral procession The Independent Student Union and the “December ’90” Group condemn the student’s murder ON PAGE 3

ON PAGE 5

The DP’s Organizational Secretary, Mr. Fatos Beja, and Ms. Jozefina Topalli, members of the DP leadership and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, have been invited by Her Majesty’s Government of Great Britain to take part in a seminar on issues of democracy. The seminar “Parliamentary Democracy—is this the perfect model?” begins on Monday, February 22, at the conference center at Wilton Park in Sussex. At this conference, Mr. Beja and Ms. Topalli will, among other things, present the problems accompanying the current political crisis in Albania and the Democratic Party’s positions on it.

Today, 162 days since the murder of the December Leader Every day that passes since the murder of Azem Hajdari, the symbol of democracy and pluralism, proves the involvement of Fatos Nano’s government and that of his successor in the crime that shook the entire Albanian world. The governments of the former communists, who are free and insincere toward the criminals who took the life of the December Leader, show Albanians that they have been and are on the side of the murderers, who have names and surnames but are untouched by those in power. Democrats and all Albanians who loved and mourned Azem Hajdari can in no way tolerate this fact. The government must either capture the criminals and bring them to justice, or publicly declare that it itself committed the murder of Azem Hajdari.

Young Democrats secure political support from European partners The Executive approves a resolution on Kosovo and condemns political killings and imprisonment in Albania ON PAGE 3

Ismail Totzati: Here is who I am and what I have done for Albania ON PAGE 10

Egfantina Metani, chair of the Democratic Party branch in Skrapar, speaks Ms. Metani, you are the only woman to chair a party branch. Is this emancipation, or the courage to face the reality around you? My becoming head of the DP branch in Skrapar was not a chance step. I became involved in Skrapar’s political life early, back in 1992. ON PAGE 8

Yesterday, in Skënderbej Square

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The chairman of the DP Parliamentary Group speaks after the Prosecutor’s Office decision ON PAGE 2