TIRANA, Feb. 13 – Two Albanian government ministers reacted strongly against a of Serious Crimes Court of Appeals verdict concerning the 25-year jail sentence against Dritan Dajti, after the latter killed four policemen.
Interior Minister Sandà«r Lleshaj said in a public statement that the decision to condemn Dajti to 25 years of imprisonment is an assassination of justice and that the police will have no peace until that decision is revoked.
“The last 48 hours have been emotionally heavy for family members of the officers who fell on duty on August 7, 2009, for the State Police and all Albanian citizens, as a result of a criminal decision of some judges who fully deserve to join their customers behind bars,” Lleshaj said.
According to Lleshaj, the decision comes as a crime from people with legal and constitutional immunity.
“The ‘Force of Law’ operation has been put into action to address with all the force of law the clear, brutal and scandalous assassination toward our country’s justice, towards the countless sacrifices and spilled blood of hundreds State Police officers over the last three decades,” Lleshaj said.
The justice ministry also called the court decision “an unacceptable scandal of intolerable proportions,” while Minister Etilda Gjonaj said the government will respond to this by addressing the High Judicial Council.
The justice minister will request the HJC to take disciplinary measures against the judges for this unprecedented case of violations in opposition to any standard of shortened sentences and criminal processes.
The Serious Crimes Appeals Court annulled the decision to sentence Dajti with life imprisonment two days earlier and accepted the appeal for a shortened trial, setting the sentence to 25 years of prison.
Dajti is accused of killing four policemen in 2009, Fatos Xhani, Sajmir Duckollari, Altin Dizdari and Kastriot Feskaj, but said he shot the gun to defend himself without knowing they were policemen.
The Supreme Court returned the file for retrial to the Appellate for a procedural violation after Dajti was sentenced to life imprisonment, but the shortened sentence was accepted and out of the 25 years of imprisonment he is estimated to have paid off nearly 15 years of the measure after 10 years of judicial investigations on the case.
