TIRANA, June 14 – Authorities have arrested a judge and a defense attorney as they sat down to split the proceeds of a bribe, police said.
Judge Parashqevi Ademi of the Lezha Court of First Instance and Gjovalin Ndokaj, a lawyer, were arrested this week following an investigation of the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office, police said.
Police moved in on the two after their surveillance showed they were counting and splitting 200,000 leks (about 1,400 euros) they had taken as a bribe to steer a court case in the favor of one of Ndokaj’s clients in the town of Laç, about 60 kilometers north of Tirana.
The money had been offered by the lawyer’s clients in exchange for a favorable ruling by the judge. However, the client had also turned informant for the police after reporting the demand for the bribe.
“Ndokaj, a lawyer and member of the Lezha Lawyers Association, was caught taking from a citizen, A.P., the sum of 200,000 leks, of which 150,000 he kept for himself and 50,000 leks were given to Judge Parashqevi Ademi, who works as a judge at the Court of First Instance in Lezha,” the General Police Directorate said in a press release.
Authorities had obtained the permission of the High Council of Justice a day earlier to go ahead with the arrest. The HCJ is the governing body for the judiciary in Albania and must agree to lift the immunity from prosecution judges enjoy.
The move comes after another judge was arrested last week. Rasim Doda, a judge in the southern city of Saranda, had allegedly asked for 8 million leks (57,000 euros) to resolve a civil case in favor of one of the parties.
When the party did not pay up, he ruled in favor of the other side, according the charges made by prosecutors, who said they found evidence of corruption in Doda’s computer.
