Albanian parliament votes in favor of ousting prosecutor-general

Tirana, Albania – Albania’s parliament voted Monday in favor of ousting Prosecutor-General Theodhori Sollaku for allegedly breaking the constitution and not fighting organized crime and corruption.
It now falls to President Bamir Topi to decide whether to ratify such a proposal.
Majority lawmakers approved a report by a vote of 77-37 prepared by an 11-member parliamentary committee that was boycotted by the opposition, claiming the governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha was trying to consolidate all government powers under their control.
The 44-page report was issued after a week of investigative hearings, saying Sollaku had not cooperated with international institution to extradite Albanian suspects and “created a great climate of mistrust among foreign authorities,” that the prosecutor office had abusively released 22 sentenced criminals and, on the other side, had kept silent about dangerous murder cases.
Sollaku, 45, who was former President Sali Berisha’s legal adviser from 1992 to 1997, has refuted these claims, considers the investigation as anti-constitutional, “a subversive act, institutional putsch with grave consequences in functioning of the independent institutions and respect of the citizens’ rights and freedom.”
But in his words, it was clearly understood that he considered himself as ousted from the post.
Opposition legislators boycotted the committee and said the governing majority ousted Sollaku to hide many corrupt and scandalous cases involving its top officials, including a government minister for whom the prosecutor office had asked the parliament lift immunity to investigative in an alleged corruption case.
Sollaku and some opposition leaders also mentioned President Gen. Pervez Musharraf making comparisons between the way the governing Democrats were behaving against Sollaku and also the arrests of opposition leaders after breaking the constitution.
Corruption and organized crime are major issues in Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Last year, after a similar investigation, the Democrats tried to oust Sollaku-whose position carries no term limit and can only be terminated if he is found to have broken the law or be incapacitated by illness-but the effort was blocked by then-President Alfred Moisiu.
President Bamir Topi, who took office in July and has the final say over Sollaku’s fate after Parliament approved the report, is likely to back his removal.
Ironically, Sollaku was nominated five years ago by the then-opposition Democrats after the governing Socialists removed his predecessor from the post in a similar fashion.