Gerdec blast case taken to Supreme Court

TIRANA, March 15 – A year after the blast, prosecutors sent the big file of the Gerdec explosions charging 28 persons of abuse of post and some of them with murder to the Supreme Court.
On March 15, 2008, a series of explosions killed 26 people, injured 302 and destroyed or damaged 5,500 houses. Albania’s former defense minister, the former army chief of staff and 26 other officials have been charged in court over the blasts, three of them with murder.
Many boxes of the case’s documentation were taken to the Supreme Court Friday, a move that the governing coalition of Prime Minister Sali Berisha considered as politically-motivated and urged from the opposition.
Twenty-four high officials of the Ministry of Defense, including ex-Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu and Army Chief-of-Staff Luan Hoxha, were charged with abuse of power and falsifying documents over the deadly blast at an army depot outside Tirana last March. Three others, owner of the Alba-Demil private disposal company Mihal Delijorgji, its manager Dritan Minxholi, Ylli Pinari, the former head of Albania’s arms export agency MEICO, and Sokol Gjeci a MEICO supervisor for the demolition site have also been charged of murder.
All have denied any wrongdoing. If convicted they face up to seven years in prison.