TIRANA, April 11 – The Serious Crimes Prosecution has asked judges to convict a high police official from the Gjirokastra region, seeking eight years of imprisonment for alleged involvement in cannabis cultivation in the area.
According to the prosecution, the accused police officer, Gani Abazi, former chief of specialists in the Tepelena Commissariat, was keeping contact through mobile phone with cannabis cultivators in the area.
Abazi is currently prosecuted under house arrest, while the court is expected to give a final verdict based on the prosecution’s claims.
Three more people are being prosecuted in the same court process for belonging to a “criminal group” and for “cannabis cultivation” in some areas in the country’s South for a requested total of 25 years.
The case’s defendants were arrested in February 2017, during an operation where more than 1.7 tonnes of cannabis were confiscated.
The investigation expanded over some Gjirokastra villages where it was suspected cannabis was cultivated and police officials were involved with cannabis funders and cultivators.
According to public police data, 30 percent of detected narcotics on a national scale were cultivated in the Gjirokastra district, while the alleged involvement of police officials in the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis is also high.
