ALB
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Awaiting Parliament’s voting, following the request of the Prosecution for the arrest of the former Minister of Interior, Saimir Tahiri, we’re bracing ourselves to see the investigation against him fail. Currently, there is no legal debate on the evidence, interpretation of the law, the procedures that have been followed and the way the investigation group is working. But, we have a clear political battle between opposition, which is demanding Tahiri’s arrest and the majority, which is against his arrest. The same rule has been followed from the fall of communism up until today with all the big cases of the Albanian justice system. They start with the murder of 2 April 1991 in Shkodra, they continue with the trial against Fatos Nano in 1993, the arrest of the 6 senior officials of the DP in 1998, the murder of Azem Hajdari on 12 September 1998, the uprising of 14 September 1998, the blast of Gerdec in 2008 and the killings of 21 January 2011. But, the same thing is also expected to happen to the case of the former minister Saimir Tahiri.
By Roland Qafoku
The rule is not changing even 27 years later. More than a legal battle, the case of the former minister of Interior, Saimir Tahiri has turned into a political battle. There’s no debate on the evidence, the procedures that have been followed, the interpretation of laws, on whether the prosecutors are entitled or not to place Tahiri under arrest. Instead, we’re seeing political debates, statements and counter statements and we’re seeing a perception that if you’re in opposition, you support and request Tahiri’s arrest and if you’re a majority, you’re against this arrest and want to defend him. In fact, this is no surprise in Albania. This has constantly happened in these 27 years: Every major and sensitive case for the public opinion has been politicized to a point that its legal relevance has been lost and no politicians have ever been convicted. We have no accurate version of an event and as a result, justice has not been delivered.
The same thing happened with the 2 April 1991 case in Shkodra, when up until today, we only know that a few police chiefs were arrested along with the former minister of Interior, Hajredin Shyti, but we don’t know who gave the order to shoot on the crowd and on the bodies of the four young people. The reason for this is that the case was politicized at the time and the Democratic Party spoke before the prosecutors did. This is the reason why up until today, the families of the victims still don’t know who killed those youngsters, while several people did prison time without any reason.
This also happened with Fatos Nano’s case on 31 July 1993, when the SP’s chairman was arrested. This corruption case was the best example of politicization. It was merely a witch hunt which aimed at imprisoning the leader of opposition and keep him there after the victory of local government elections by this party, a few months after the victory of the DP on 22 March 1992. But the case was politicized and today, we don’t know who the people who took millions from Fatos Nano are. What we know is that he did four years in prison. According to the academic, Apollon Baçe, Fatos Nano was imprisoned in 1993, when he didn’t steal anything, but he wasn’t imprisoned when he stole from 2003 until 2005. Nano was acquitted when he became PM and received 720 thousand lek in compensation.
This was also the case with the trial against the 6 former senior officials of the DP, who were arrested on 23 August 1998. Former minister of Interior, Halit Shamata, former minister of Defence, Safet Zhulali, former director of the State Audit, Blerim Cela, former deputy director of the Secret Services, Bujar Rama, former chief of Vlora police, Sokol Mulosmani and former commander Kreshnik Lusha, were arrested in the middle of the night. After what happened in March 1997, they faced charges of crimes against humanity, the most serious charge ever applied by the Albanian justice. The DP not only considered this a witch hunt, but this political clash threatened to bring to Albania a second March ’97. But with the intervention of foreign diplomats, especially OSCE, these arrested people were released and when the deadlines expired, the file was put away and the six arrested men received compensation. Meanwhile, the whole process remained in history because the prosecution raised the most serious charges ever raised by the Albanian judicial system.
This also happened with the killing of Azem Hajdari on 12 September 1998. It’s true that the trial was completed and the murderers were discovered, but politicization that was made with this case was extreme. Meanwhile, according to the official version, the murder was committed out of revenge. This was also confirmed by the Norwegian prosecutor Siri Frighard, which was part of the investigation group. To understand the extent of the politicization of this case, we just need to recall the first declaration issued by the DP immediately after the murder: “Hajdari was killed by Nano and Slobodan Milosevic”.
This was also the case with the investigation of the so called armed uprising on 14 September 1998. Even to this day, the organizers of this uprising have not yet been discovered, while at that time, the prosecution managed to secure an authorization to lift the immunity, investigate and arrest Sali Berisha as leader of the DP which organized the rebellion. Not only Berisha was not arrested, be he wasn’t even investigated and did not ever appear at the prosecution.
This was also the case during the investigation and the trial on the blast of Gerdec on 15 March 2008. On one hand, the SP in opposition requested the arrest of the heads of the Ministry of Defence and the minister himself, Fatmir Mediu, while on the other, the government defended the officials. In the end, this so called mega-trial, failed and could not lead to any real convictions.
This was also the case for the 21 January 2011 events. The case was politicized to the extent that upon the order of Prime Minister Berisha, the arrest warrants issued by the prosecution for several Republican Guard officers, were not executed. Several of these officers were convicted in the end, but even to this day, we still don’t know who gave the order to open fire and what really happened in those five hours in the boulevard and the offices of the Council of Ministers.
The same fate is also expected from Saimir Tahiri’s case. It’s not important for a professional justice system what a politician thinks about the case. What’s important is what the investigators and prosecutors think based on the law. Prosecution and the investigative group are independent in their work and they must be allowed to do their job. If we want justice, justice should be made not by politicizing the case, but by investigating deeper into it. Otherwise, we will only create statistics and we will mark Saimir Tahiri’s name as one of the 62 interior Ministers of the Albanian state, since the government of Ismail Qemali. In a history which has 21 arrested ministers, 8 ministers who were killed and 8 ministers who have been executed. However, we will never see any justice. This was and is the fate of every politicized case in Albania.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy
