The US Ambassador in Tirana, Donald Lu said today that they are reviewing allegations raised by Albanain Democratic Party about the brother of Interior Minister, Fatmir Xhafaj. His comments came after the reaction of Prime Minister Edi Rama yesterday in Parliament who said that if the implication of Minister Xhafaj would have been real, the US ambassador would have been the first to speak. "The prime minister must speak in his name and we will speak in our name" the US ambassador said in a brief response today.
The opposition has accused the Interior Minister of giving protection to his brother, arrested in Italy in 2002, and sentenced in 2012 to 7 years and two months in prison for participating in criminal organizations dealing with narcotic drug trafficking. The Opposition has been responsible Mr. Xhafaj, who, in the position of the chairman of the Laws Commission, intervened last year, making a change in the Code of Criminal Procedure which, according to DP, protects directly his brother.The Socialist Commissioner Vasilika Hysi dismissed today the opposition claims stating that the article the Opposition refers to is a reflection of the European Convention. "The article that is the next casus belli of the opposition in fact is a reflection of the extradition convention, the additional protocol. The commission has voted on the version that is in effect,"Ms. Hysi wrote in a long post on Facebook.
But Democrats reacted again by calling this a false statement. "The European Extradition Convention explicitly states that extradition may be refused, only in those cases where Albania thinks that trial proceedings in a particular case do not meet the minimum defense rights recognized for a person charged with a criminal offense. In this case, a warrant for retrial is required.
If the person in custody has been respected, If the minimum defense rights have been respected for the person in custory, but he himself has chosen to hid from justice, then there is no guarantee for retrial, but according to the Convention it is mandatory to allow the extradition," explained Gazmend Bardhi, PD's legal expert. On his part MP Enkelejd Alibeaj said that "The Prosecution has the legal obligation to take criminal responsibility for Fatmir Xhafaj for forgery of documents and corruption of senior public officials".
Even the Socialist Movement for Integration is of the idea that "although delayed, the Albanian Prosecution should start the issue to find out how the truth stands," said Petrit Vasili in a public statement, the head of SMI parliamentary group said also that the other way would be a parliamentary inquiry. "All this practice needs to be discarded, we need to see how this whole thing has worked and at the end of the day everyone will be clearer about what happened, why, if there are persons who are responsible, they must be responsible to the end" said Mr. Vasili, proposing at the same time the abrogation of the controversial article of the Civil Procedure Code" and sit on the table to work on new definitions, which close alibi for the salvation of criminals and traffickers and turn the code into an instrument of war with organized crime and trafficking,"stressed the head of the SMI parliamentary group.