Former Interior Minister lobbied U.S. for silence about trial
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TIRANA, Sep. 3 - The U.S. Department of Justice has found that Albania's former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri paid a lobbying firm about $20,000 in efforts to stop the U.S. Embassy in Tirana from making any statements about his trial for narcotics trafficking and abuse of office.
According to a statement filed to the US Department of Justice by the lobbying firm Stone Strategic Solutions Srl, as presented by BIRN, Tahiri requested that a letter was sent to the US embassy personnel asking they refrain from making comments during his appeals.
The Stone Strategic Solutions Srl representative met staffers for Congressman Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, a staffer for the Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, a Democrat from New York, and staffers for Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
“[The representative] discussed with them the foreign principal’s legal issues in Albania, his continued appeals, and the necessity for US Embassy personnel to refrain from comment while foreign individuals are still working through the judicial process, in keeping with US Policy,” the statement says.
The statements adds that Tahiri also met with State Department Directors for Albania and "requested their understanding of the influence the US Embassy statements have on the courts in Albania."
Tahiri turned into a controversial topic in 2017, when Italian police arrested an Albanian-Italian criminal ring led by the Habilaj brothers.
Wiretaps made public in Albania included the Habilaj brothers mentioning Tahiri in their conversation from the time the latter was minister of interior.
In September last year, the court sentenced Tahiri to 3 years of probation on charges of abuse of power. The prosecution, in turn, had sought a sentence of 12 years in prison on three charges: Narcotics trafficking in the form of a structured criminal group; Participation in a structured criminal group, and committing the crime in a structured criminal group, claiming his connection with the so-called Habilaj group accused of cannabis trafficking from Albania to Italy.
