Detention passes on to Justice Ministry

TIRANA, Feb. 3 – Acting Interior Minister Gjergj Lezhja said that all detention centers were practically passing under the authorities of the Justice Ministry, a move that he considered as a very important one. That has been a decision the government had set since 2003 but it was made possible only during these days. Albania had been constantly criticized from international community for the low standards at the detention centers. Last year the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which visited 20 Albanian detention facilities and police stations and four prison hospitals in 2005, said in a report that most of the inmates interviewed complained of ill-treatment in police custody and expressed profound mistrust of the justice system. Albania’s dilapidated prisons are overcrowded and many inmates are kept at police detention centers.