Albanian Supreme Court begins trial of foreign minister Basha

TIRANA, Dec 16 – Albania’s Supreme Court has selected judges for the upcoming trial of Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha, charged with abuse of post and corruption during the time he served as transport minister.
This is expected to be the highest profile case since the 1990 trials of communist leaders.
At the same time, Tirana district court ruled that the prosecutor’s office was not correct in summoning and accusing Basha. This was the same verdict also handed down to two previous officials accused of corruption. The investigation against them was cancelled, though not against Basha and his former legal adviser at the transport ministry.
Judge Spiro Spiro and four others were chosen through a process of casting lots to avoid charges of bias.
Prosecutors have accused Basha of breaking the rules of public tenders and causing a budget loss of 115 million Euros in awarding U.S.-Turkish firm Bechtel-Enka a contract to build a 61-km section of road linking Albania to Kosova.
From the initial 418 million euro cost, the road segment may eventually cost more than one billion Euros, according to experts.
Judge Spiro Spiro is expected to soon set a date for the trial.
Basha’s trial is likely to damage the Democratic Party government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who came to power in 2005 vowing to stamp out corruption.
Basha has consistently rejected all corruption charges and defended the building of the highway from Albania’s Durres port to the border of newly independent Kosova as the “Road of the Century.”
Basha has accused the main opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama, and others, of fabricating absurd charges against him.
Speaking in parliament Basha said, “How can equality in tenders be broken when the selection was done without a tender? How can one be accused of abuse of office after the government has approved the activity of the respective agency?”
Prosecutors also accuse Basha of breaking laws of fairness by selecting the Ecorys Group as a consultant and allowing the Ecorys Group and Bechtel-Enka to negotiate the contract, not Albanian state representatives.
At this moment, the government repeated its defense saying that Basha had not served on his own but based his actions on cabinet decisions. This was also repeated by Prime Minister Sali Berisha.
The opposition then presented documents claiming that out of four government decisions, only one was published in the official gazette, which means the other three were invalid.
The Rreshen-Kalimash section of the Albanian-Kosova highway is costing Albania 1,027 billion Euros and is only one part of the 170 kilometer highway.
The highway, which links the port of Durres with Kosova and includes a six kilometer-long tunnel, is the country’s largest public works project constructed in decades.
Almost 89 per cent of Albania’s capital expenditures during the 2008 fiscal year have been spent for the highway, data published by the Ministry of Finance suggests.
For the nine months ending on September 30, Albania had spent 328 million Euros from its 373 million euro capital expenditures budget on the road.
About half of this sum was raised in the international market as syndicated commercial loans. Albania will need to invest another 250 million Euros to complete the project, due to open in the summer of 2009.