TIRANA, June 26 – Prime Minister Edi Rama announced on Tuesday through social networks that he authorized a German lawyer to launch a lawsuit on the BILD wiretap recordings alleging his government’s implication into vote rigging.
“I just handed the German lawyer Matthias Prinz the procurement for the initiation of the court process over the BILD publications. Let the German courts decide who is right and who is guilty of this. I do it because the Albanians deserve to know the truth from the justice of that shadowless country ,” Rama informed, make a step he had warned of in advance official.
His decision came a few days after the well-known German newspaper published several phone calls intercepted by the Albanian prosecution, where Rama, high SP ministers and other officials are allegedly heard discussing elections and vote rigging in the Dibra province of the country.
According to BILD, conversations prove the socialists’ abuses in the elections, pressure on voters, vote-buying, and family voting threats to maximize the left-wing victory.
Rama and other officials heard in the video confirmed they were the ones having those conversations after the wire tappings first came out and initially said they would also find and sue the prosecutors who released such investigative files, as this is illegal.
Pieter Tiede, the journalist who wrote the story in BILD, immediately replied through social networks.
“Crazy: Albanian Prime Minister wants to sue me. The only thing he has so far is one of the most expensive lawyers in Germany,” he wrote originally in German in his Facebook status.
The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) also reacted to the news.
“Albania’s PM Edi Rama has launched the legal process against Peter Tiede. To our delegation last week he said he “would not use criminal law against journalists but would continue to bring civil defamation cases against journalists in ‘extreme’ cases,” the ECPMF tweeted.
The centre’s legal advisor Flutura Kusari also reacted.
“During our mission we found out that press freedom in Albania is deteriorating. Instead of filing lawsuits against journalists, PM Edi Rama should engage in improving press freedom in the country and stop calling journos trash bins,” she added.
A mission comprising seven well known media freedom organisations, among them the ECPMF, just left the capital after having called on politicians on all sides in Albania to stop harassing and denigrating journalists and media that they do not control.
Rama met the delegation, which reported he had defended the use of offensive language towards journalists but had also agreed to not engage in the future. Meanwhile, Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj did not meet with the mission.
