TIRANA, April 4 – The house arrest ordered last week by a first instance court for Lezha Mayor Fran Frrokaj has been modified by Shkodra’s Appeals Court to remove police surveillance.
The same was decided for six other officials who, along with Frrokaj, were accused of abuse of power tied to land deals in the municipality’s Shengjin coastline. Among them is Deputy Mayor Enver Hafizi and head of the Lezha District, Gjokà« Ndoka.
Only two out of the nine accused officials were charged with imprisonment.
The case was sent to Shkodra’s Appeals Court by the accused, who pleaded innocent and asked for a different court decision.
On the other hand, a review of the case was also requested by the prosecution, however insisting on imprisonment charges for all officials.
Prosecutors believe the officials involved and other residents used abuse of office, falsification of documents and altering of paperwork to embezzle approximately 234,548 square meters of the publicly-owned coastal land in an area called Rana e Hedhun.
In this context, the police detained thirteen of the officials in March and issued arrest warrants for eleven others who were also accused of jointly embezzling publicly owned property but are yet to be arrested by the police.
The initial charges foresaw imprisonment for all 23 arrested officials by Lezha’s first instance court — ten of whom still wanted — however the reevaluation process that took place three days later amid hundred protesters had the same judge changing charges for seven of the officials to house arrest without police surveillance.
A series of arrests have been made lately in Kavaja, Rrogozhina and, most recently, Lezha, where officials have been accused of office abuse and corruption.
Meanwhile, authorities have claimed they are dealing with a number of coastline property abuse cases that were estimated to turn into ground for elite tourism.
