Defendant in Gerdec case accuses minister of abuse

TIRANA, June 8 – Ylli Pinari, one of the 28 defendants in the Gerdec trial accused the former defense minister and other former top military officials of abusing with the documentation on the ammunition disposal factory owned by a private company.
Pinari is a main defendant and former head of the state-owned MEICO company, which was entitled to buy and sell military products for the Albanian government. He said that the then-minister and top military officials had issued a number of documents, letters which surpassed their competencies in favoring the private company’s operation.
Two years ago a massive series of blasts at an ammunition disposal factory in Gerdec killed 26 people and injured 300.
On March 15, 2008, a series of explosions at an ammunition disposal factory in Gerdec, near Tirana, injured 302 people and destroyed or damaged 5,500 houses.
Albania’s former defense minister and army chief of staff, and 26 other officials were charged over the blasts, but the then-defense minister Fatmir Mediu was released from the accusation after he was reelected at the parliament a year later. He was also included in the new cabinet as environment minister
The Socialist-led opposition and many personalities accused the government of corruption in dealing with the disposal of obsolete weapons, and urged Prime Minister Sali Berisha to resign personally blaming him for the blast and the business.
Immediately after the blast the AEY, the US company involved in the ammunition deal with the Albanian company, was exposed on the front page of The New York Times, and three Americans, including Efraim Diveroli, have been indicted and convicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for defrauding the U.S. Government.
Kosta Trebicka, the AEY whistle blower, died in a car accident later on.
About 90,000 tons of excess ammunition, mostly Russian and Chinese artillery shells made in the 1960s or earlier, are stored in former army depots across Albania, now a NATO member since last year
Albania, assisted from the United States and other NATO member countries, has started to dispose of the excess arsenal.