TIRANA, March 5 – Albania’s parliament approved this week the establishment of an investigative commission on the role and responsibility of state institutions in the marijuana cultivation phenomenon.
According to its mandate, the commission would also look into the case of former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri, who is under criminal investigation over alleged ties to narcotics traffickers.
Albania’s opposition had demanded the special parliamentary commission be established, and the Socialist majority MPs gave it a green light.
The commission established this week will be chaired by the opposition, which says that without direct support by police and other state authorities the cultivation or trafficking of marijuana would have never reached the large proportion it did in recent years.
Debate between opposition and Socialist lawmakers on drug issues took much of the parliament’s marathon session last Thursday, with a major cocaine seizure serving to reassert opposition claims that Albania has become a heaven for organized crime under Socialist rule.
Albanian police seized 613 kg of cocaine – the largest quantity ever seized in the country – valued €180 million in the market inside a container importing bananas from Latin America. The narcotics were thought to have been part of a wider drug trafficking network which starts in Columbia and Ecuador, uses Albania as a transit state and then, through Albanian organized crime gangs, passes on to the European market.
The seizure served as a further catalyst for opposition accusations against the government, while the ruling Socialists said it was a sign the police were doing their job.
Through the parliamentary investigation, the opposition says it aims to “check the legality of the administrative actions of legislative or executive bodies in the cultivation and trafficking of narcotics, including the case of former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri, the interference of these powers in independent criminal prosecutions.”
The ruling Socialists had refused a request from prosecutors last November to be allowed to arrest Tahiri, authorizing only an investigation. Socialist MPs said the prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to support an arrest.
Opposition and ruling party MPs are also discussing to adopt a new law on the assessment of police officers under the same vetting model being applied to Albanian prosecutors and judges. The idea was introduced by current Minister of Interior Fatmir Xhafaj.
The new law would be implemented in three phases. In the first phase, they will undergo professional evaluation and asset verification, the top 300 police officials will go first, and then it will move down the ranks from there.
The law is seen as an opportunity to get out of the police ranks corrupt elements or officers with ties to criminal groups.
