TIRANA, Oct. 14, 2022 – The Prosecutor’s Office of Tirana has refused a request by Ilir Meta, Albania’s former president and Freedom Party chairman, to start criminal proceedings against officials with the Authority for Information on the Documents of the former State Security Sigurimi on the issuing of a report that Meta says falsely implicated him as a collaborator of Albania’s former secret police.
Meta’s office issued a statement expressing his dismay on “a decision that flagrantly violates the law in every part of it, both in procedure and in content.”
It also accused the prosecutors of succumbing to political pressure from the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
“The actions of the prosecution have been scandalous and unimaginable, the Freedom Party statement noted.
The Freedom Party said prosecutors did not speak to Meta to get his side, but only communicated with authority officials. They also refused to accept documents that “clearly prove the abuse of office, fraud and manipulation of the members of the flies authority,” according to the FP.
Meta’s attorney, Genc Gjokutaj, said the authority and parliament had also refused to provide files they are entitled to by law.
“The non-initiation of the criminal case by the Prosecutor’s Office of Tirana without conducting any investigation, the non-delivery of documents by the Files Authority to the lawyer in violation of the law, as well as the non-delivery of documents by the Parliament of Albania to the lawyer, clearly shows the capturing of justice and all institutions by Edi Rama,” the statement added.
Meta’s office said the decision will be appealed in the Judicial District Court in Tirana.
“This matter will be pursued to the end, and in case the judicial process requires it, it will be appealed at all levels of the courts of the country, but also at international courts,” it added.
Meta had earlier told Tirana Times in an interview that Rama was resorting to “dirty tricks” of “fabricated stories” to attack him as he rejoined active political life after leaving the office of the president.
“This story betrays the immense fears that Rama and his regime have, and their desperation and hopelessness in front of the popular discontent and the earth trembling under their feet,” Meta said.
Meta became the target of a campaign of government-friendly media outlets that had cited a file seeming to implicate him with Sigurimi.
The file alludes that someone with the initials I.M. spied on a fellow student when the two of them were living in a dorm at the University in Tirana. Meta, however, never lived in the dorms. And there are other inconsistencies too, say the experts looking at it — with government critics saying the file is clearly a political tool to try to neutralize Meta as an opposition leader. He recently returned at the helm of a major opposition movement he has rebranded as the Freedom Party.
The man whose file was involved in the report, Filip Talo, has come out publicly to say the former president was not involved and the initials in the file are tied to a dormitory friend that happens to have the same initials as the Freedom party chairman.
A group of ruling Socialist Party MPs quickly moved to write amendments to the laws that could be far ranging and could lead to a ban of Meta himself and his party from Albanian politics using the file that Talo and Meta say is forged. The amendments have not yet been voted on in parliament.
