Journalists deplore treatment of their colleagues

TIRANA, Jan. 3 – The Union of the Albanian Journalists deplored a verdict of the Peshkopi district court on releasing a person who had attacked a team of journalists of a private television station.
The Top Channel journalists were covering problems of the chromium mines and the work in the Bulqiza northern town when they were attacked from a person.
Aleksander Cipa of the Union said that, “The Union reacts in an alarming way toward the violence in Bulqiza which shows that judiciary has also uncontrolled territories. That verdict betrays the real behavior of the judiciary on some issues giving permission for an abusive behavior to some persons,” according to a statement.
The Union also said they would report the issue to the international journalists organizations
They also appealed that the other levels of the judiciary treat the case “in line with the law and not in a selective way.”
To follow that the court also declared ARMO Refinery’s boss Rezart Ta詠clear of assault charges.
The court declared Ta詠”not guilty” of physical assault and no appeal was sought.
Ta詠was cleared of assault allegations dating back to November 2009.
A year later Judge Petrit ȯmo in Tirana declared that Ta詠had been found “not guilty” of the charge. Under Albanian law there could have been an appeal against the judgment within 21 days, but none has been lodged.
The official wording of the court’s ruling reads: “To declare not guilty the defendant Rezart Ta詬 charged with the penal offense of physical assault due to reasons related to professional standing, committed in collaboration, foreseen in article 237-25 of the Penal Code.”
Taci was arrested in 2009 on assault charges in connection with an attack on a journalist in a bar. He was later released.
Taci, 39, gave himself up to police after a court ruled he should await trial in jail over the attack on the journalist Mero Baze.
local press reports said Taci and several of his bodyguards beat Baze, editor of the daily Tema into unconsciousness at a bar in downtown Tirana. Baze had recently produced a series of reports accusing the businessman of tax evasion and criticizing authorities for inaction.
Baze, who was hospitalized overnight following the attack, said that the businessman “came straight to the table where I was sitting with my two colleges. He started swearing and offending me and also hitting me. I tried to step back and protect myself and I noticed that I was surrounded by his bodyguards. I passed out after a few minutes of hitting and when I became conscious again they had left.”
Everyone, including government, criticized the attack offering support to the journalist
But the court thought differently, or in other words that Baze was not beaten and everything had been a false, an imagined event.