Meta accused of corruption

TIRANA, May 11 – Former Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Ilir Meta, also leader of the small leftist Socialist Movement for Integration Party that is part of the governing coalition, is under a formal charge of corruption.
Prosecutor General Ina Rama’s office has filed corruption charges against him after the broadcast of a video allegedly showing him discussing corrupt deals with another former minister. Its broadcast from a private television station obliged Meta to resign in early January this year and sparked an increased protest from the opposition to topple the government.
The opposition Socialist Party-led protest of January 21 ended with four of its supporters shot dead. The probe on that is also open.
Meta is charged with active corruption and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Meta has always denied any wrongdoing, claiming his words were taken out of context.
Meta has said that he was “intervening in the name of a business because after an Appeals Court ruling in favor of the company, it was being stalled by the ministry of economy,” then headed by Prifti.
He considered the video as “a disgusting political bluff that was made by organized crime as blackmail against me”.
The tape, which is of poor quality, was shot in Prifti’s office by the former minister, who was dismissed in September last year following disagreements with Meta. he said he had received threats against his life during his time in office. Meta later left his post as minister of foreign affairs and took over the ministry of economy.
But prosecutors maintain that they have been able to verify the video as genuine through the help of an American and a British expert.
Prosecutor General Ina Rama filed the charges at the Supreme Court on Monday.
The transcripts of the video show Meta asking the former Minister of Economy Dritan Prifti to intervene over a hydropower plant concession tender, naming an alleged recompense by a businessman of a seven per cent stake or a 700,000 euro bribe.
Prifti is also being probed into another case but again on alleged corruption.
Meta LSI Party is the junior government partner with Prime Minister Sali Berisha controlling the ministries of economy, foreign affairs and health. it holds four parliamentary seats but Berisha could not create the government without them.