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| From the left: Shkëlqim Cani and Ilir Beqja, montage |
According to the official announcement from SPAK, Rrjepaj is charged with the criminal offenses of "document forgery" and "abuse of duty," while businessman Ilir Rrapaj is charged with severe fraud, as stipulated by Article 143/3 of the Penal Code, local media reports.
SPAK also announced that six additional security measures were executed against members of the concession commission, two of whom are under house arrest and four are required to appear before the Judicial Police Officer.
Economic and legal directors of the Ministry of Health, Saimir Kadiu and Marsela Serjanaj, were placed under house arrest, while the rector of the University of Medicine, Arben Gjata, and three other members of the commission, Petref Mersini, Genc Burazeri, and Naile Ajazi, will be investigated under the measure of obligation to appear.
The surgical instrument sterilization concession is one of four Public-Private Partnership projects of the "Rama" government in the health sector, costing Albanian taxpayers approximately 7.9 billion lekë [76 million euros] by the end of 2022.
This is one of the first cases reported to the Special Prosecution Office since 2019, while the decision follows more than four years of investigation.
In the press release, SPAK informed that the criminal proceedings were initiated in January 2020 and submitted to the court for arrest measures in June 2023, after carrying out "an extraordinarily large number of investigative actions." The security measures were approved by the Special Court on June 23, but SPAK does not explain in the release why they were executed almost two months later.
When asked by BIRN, the prosecutor of the case, Edvin Kondili, attributed the delay in executing the security measures to the fact that the accused businessman, Ilir Rrapaj, was not in Albania.
"It was our strategy because we knew that the other person under investigation would also come," he said, implying that the arrest of former Deputy Minister Rrjepaj could have led to the departure of businessman Ilir Rrapaj.
SPAK's request for security measures against eight individuals accused, excluding former Minister of Health Ilir Beqja and Finance Minister Shkëlqim Cani, was considered minimal by the court.
"I saw that there were other criminal acts and individuals, including two former ministers, and I directed the prosecutor's office to investigate in this direction," said Judge Erion Bani in a phone conversation. He reviewed the security measures.
The prosecutor of the case, Kondili, told BIRN that former Ministers Ilir Beqja and Shkëlqim Cani are under investigation for their roles in granting the sterilization concession.
Beqja, who now heads the State Agency for Strategic Program Coordination, did not respond to a request for comment from BIRN, while former Minister Shkëlqim Cani, after a questioning session at SPAK on Thursday, stated that he had given approval after fulfilling the legal requirements.
"I am not the minister who made the payments. When the concession started, I left the position," said Cani, denying any knowledge of businessman Rrapaj.
In an investigation published in 2015, BIRN revealed that Ilir Rrapaj, a former Albanian immigrant in Italy, became the main beneficiary of the sterilization concession after establishing contacts with former Minister Ilir Beqja and other Socialist officials.
Through his small company with a registered capital of 1,000 euros in Pristina, Investital LLC, Rrapaj acquired 40% of the shares in the consortium that won the concession. The other shares were held by Italian companies Servizi Italia with 30%, Tecnosanimed with 15%, and U.Jet with 15%.
The concession contract caused a "headache" in the Ministry of Health due to its high costs, forcing the ministry to renegotiate it after its implementation started.