TIRANA, Oct. 13 – An Albanian court has acquitted the former governor of the Bank of Albania of abuse of post charges.
The Tirana court acquitted Ardian Fullani Monday, despite the request for five years imprisonment made by the prosecutor.
The prosecutor said he would appeal the verdict.
Fullani was charged with abuse of office over the theft of 713 million leks (then about $7 million) found to be missing from the bank reserves. He was also charged of abuse of office on avoiding normal procedure on the purchase of a hotel for office space.
Several other former employees of the central bank already have been to trial. There have been two convictions.
The defendant, Fullani, had agreed to a speedy trial, meaning that he would profit one-third of the sentence off if found guilty.
Fullani faced trial for not doing enough to prevent about $7 million in cash from the central bank’s treasury. He also faced charges for irregularities in the bank’s purchase of a historic building in downtown Tirana, formerly known as Hotel Dajti.
The Bank of Albania was shaken up after it found its treasury was missing about 713 million leks in cash a year ago. Fullani was arrested several week later, leading to his sacking by parliament.
Fullani had been freed by the court awaiting his trial.
Prosecutors had said Fullani had abused his office by not appointing a deputy governor and not using powers that could have prevented the theft.
His inaction “created the conditions that led to the lapse in security in the administration of the Bank of Albania,” prosecutors said.
The former governor joined a list of about 20 other former central bank employees to face charges in the theft case.
In May, a Tirana court sentenced Ardian Bitraj to 20 years in prison for the theft of about $7 million in cash from the Bank of Albania, where he was a former employee. Another central bank former employee, Mimoza Bruzia, received ten years.
Because Bitraj accepted a plea bargain to speed up the trial, he is expected to serve a little more than 13 years.
He had admitted to have taken the money to feed his gambling addiction.
Fullani’s investigation also included the unusual purchase by the central bank of the state-owned former Hotel Dajti building in 2010 for about $32 million, a transaction that injected some cash into government coffers in an indirect manner.
