TIRANA, Oct. 27 – Albania’s Minister of Interior Fatmir Xhafaj handed in his resignation from office to Prime Minister Edi Rama on Saturday morning.
Rama himself made the news public through a tweet, while also announcing General Sander Lleshi will be taking Xhafaj’s post.
“I accepted the resignation of Minister Xhafaj, whom I thank for his valuable contribution. General Sander Lleshi will bring new positive energy as the head of interior affairs. The track has been paved. Now we need to increase the speed and achieve even more meaningful results,” Rama wrote on Twitter.
Head of the opposition’s Democratic Party Lulzim Basha wrote in social networks soon after news of his resignation broke out that “Fatmir Xhafaj was the only interior minister in Europe with a drug trafficker brother,” and that his resignation “is an important step in our battle to clear up politics from crime.”
In the same context, the opposition has also demanded Rama’s resignation for his alleged ties with crime.
Xhafaj’s resignation comes at an interesting time, as the Albanian police has been overseeing a number of operations aiming to capture the country’s most notorious criminal rings, while his replacement by the counselor for security issues – a non-political and non-experienced entity – has raised even more doubts.
An official reason behind Xhafaj’s resignation is yet to be given, although he’s been the target of numerous opposition attacks, particularly regarding the alleged protection of his brother, Agron, who used to be part of a narcotics trafficking ring in Italy.
The accusations towards Xhafaj began with the surfacing of the ‘Babale case,’ in which Albert Veliu, former collaborator of Agron, claimed he recently spoke with Agron to help him traffic narcotics for some quick money.
Both Xhafaj and Rama have denied the veracity of this audio-surveillance, while the country’s prosecution is investigating the case and has already issued two arrest warrants against Veliu and the man who impersonated Agron.
However, the Babale case investigations also made clear the fact that Agron’s sentence years back was eased significantly by saving him some prison years. Following the case breakout, Agron left to Italy to serve his sentence.
Xhafaj is one of the Socialist Party’s main politicians, a lawmaker and minister for several mandates, and chairman of the parliamentary committee of the judicial reform.
Along the vetting of the judiciary, he devised the vetting process for the state police, while leading the ‘Force of Law’ operation for many months.
Xhafaj had also been often critical of his predecessor Saimir Tahiri, who is also under fire for possible ties with criminal rings in the country due to the criminal records of his relatives in neighboring Italy.
Tahiri had announced a press conference recently, which he cancelled after Xhafaj’s resignation according to local media.
