Gerdec Families Want Recompensation

TIRANA, June 15 – Families of victims of a deadly blast at a munitions depot in March 2008 will appeal a Supreme Court ruling in the country’s Constitutional Court.
A Supreme Court panel on Monday failed to review charges against former Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu over the abuse of power regarding the blast due to the lack of one of the judges. The trial was postponed to July.
The explosion was at a munitions depot on March 15, 2008 in the village of Gerdec, ten kilometers outside Tirana.
Supreme Court judges passed the cases against 29 defendants without immunity to a lower court and only the former minister is to be judged there.
At the same time families of 26 victims of the Gerdec blast asked the private AlbDemil company to pay them compensation. The same request was also made by the government.
The Supreme Court postponed Mediu’s trial session to July 6 due to the excused absence of one of the judges in the panel. In the district court, the case against the other defendants will start soon after the selection of three new judges to head the trial.
Mediu heads the Republican Party and is a close ally of the prime minister in the centre-right ruling coalition.
According to local media, victims’ families will use their lawyers to try and stop the separate trials, arguing that the Supreme Court is setting up double standards.
They consider that trying the defendants separately is likely to further weaken a case already threatened by an earlier decision of the court. Allegations of corruption and abuse of power have reached the country’s highest political offices.
Prosecutors had earlier sought the dismissal of three judges from the case, due to their alleged close ties with several defendants and their lawyers. However, these requests were rejected.
Prosecutors were upset that the Supreme Court did not consider a series of clear legal precedents set by the constitutional court.
Prosecutor General Ina Rama in March indicted 29 people for their actions in relation to the explosion, including former senior officials of the Defense Ministry, with charges of abuse of power and with murder for four defendants – Mihal Delijorgji, owner of the AlbDemil company that managed the demolition work at the blast site; its administrator Dritan Minxoli, and Ylli Pinari, former head of Albania’s arms export agency MEICO, in charge of supervising the demolition work at the site, and Sokol Ngjeci, a MEICO supervisor for the demolition site.
They have all denied the charges.
If found guilty, the four face between 20 years to life in prison while the others face up to seven years imprisonment.
The explosion in Gerdec killed 26 people and injured over 300. Estimates published by the Albanian government say the explosion caused more than 20 million Euros in damages to the surrounding area. According to the emergency services, 400 houses were totally destroyed, 188 were severely damaged, 200 sustained major damage and 1,600 others slightly damaged.
Albania, now a NATO member, has set dismantling of the obsolete arsenal, and some 90,000 tones of ammunition, as a top priority.