TIRANA, Aug. 24 – Investigations into allegations of fraud and vote buying during the local elections in Diber in 2016 have come back into the spotlight following a decision to transfer the file from the Serious Crimes Prosecution to the Dibra Prosecution.
The opposition, which has turned the issue of election manipulation by the Socialist majority into its ‘battle horse’ reacted loudly, calling the Prosecution’s decision an attempt to “bury” the investigation and leading to clashes between them.
The reason was the decision of Prosecutor Klodian Braho to declare “incompetence” for the criminal proceedings initiated three years, after having previously changed the legal qualification of one of the criminal offenses for which this proceeding was registered as a “Structured criminal group,” to “Simple Cooperation.”
The Dibra Prosecution opposed taking over the case and in the context of this clash was temporary GP Arta Marku, who made the final decision after giving a lengthy explanation of the situation on Thursday.
One of the reasons the Dibra Prosecution objected was that “the prosecutor should have approached the court to dismiss the charges and not proceed with a change of legal qualification”.
However, according to the Chief Prosecutor, “it is not clear from the review of the acts that the prosecutor has pressed charges against any of the persons under investigation and therefore it was not necessary to address the court with a request for their dismissal. However, despite the change of legal qualification made by the prosecutor without the court having said anything about it, the control of the court is inevitable as the case cannot be resolved without going through the court filter, whatever it may be.”
Further on, Marku specified that she herself “does not have the authority to repeal the acts, orders or decisions of the prosecutor of the case.”
Another reason for the Dibra Prosecution’s refusal is that its prosecutors “are in a state of conflict of interest and cannot investigate the matter at hand” due to kinship or acquaintance with the suspects. According to the Chief Prosecutor, “if all prosecutors in the Prosecution Office of the Dibër District Court find themselves in a situation of conflict of interest and incompatibility in the exercise of their duty and express this with resignation, this is a situation they need to immediately notify the High Prosecutorial Council for, which may temporarily appoint another prosecutor to investigate the matter. ”
Marku also did not properly assess the Dibra Prosecution’s claim of “insufficient staff to handle the case”. According to her, “this is a human resources problem and the way they are managed and deployed is of an administrative nature and cannot be an argument in favor of not pursuing prosecution or make it a matter of lack of subjects.”
The chief prosecutor’s explanation, meanwhile, offered some new details. First, the fact that after three years all the wiretaps have finally been whitened. And second, that “some of the persons under investigation are suspected of having committed the offenses of ‘Rewarding and promising’ as well as ‘Threatening or violating election participants,’ in cooperation. Other persons under investigation, whose names cannot be made public because of the investigative secret, are suspected of having committed the offenses of ‘Abuse of office,’ ‘Rewarding and promising,’ as well as ‘Threatening or violating the participants in elections,’ conducted in cooperation.”
The opposition reacted strongly to the decision to shift the investigation away from the Serious Crimes. Democratic Leader Lulzim Basha on Thursday directly accused Chief Prosecutor Marku and Head of Serious Crimes Prosecution Donika Prela of serving Prime Minister Edi Rama.
“By the actions they have taken, both are criminally punishable by law, they have done nothing less than abuse of office in order to cover up a serious criminal offense, such as setting up a structured criminal group, involving top Socialist Party politicians, the most dangerous criminals in Albania, top State Police officers and Ministry of Internal Affairs officials to steal elections in Diber,” Basha said.
