TIRANA, Nov. 21 – President Bamir Topi said Wednesday that he was still considering the parliament’s report on firing or not Prosecutor General Theodhori Sollaku.
The reaction was following news in the Albanian press that Topi had already decreed Sollaku’s dismissal and would make that known upon hi return from the visit to Brussels.
Topi said that he had already received the report and a group of experts was in the final stages of concluding on that.
“Despite the news there is still no decision from the President of the Republic,” said Topi during his visit in Brussels.
Albania’s parliament has voted to oust Sollaku for allegedly breaking the constitution and not fighting organized crime and corruption.
Now it is up to President Bamir Topi to decide whether to ratify such a proposal.
A report of the parliamentary investigative committee, that was boycotted by the opposition legislators, said Sollaku had not cooperated with international institution to extradite Albanian suspects and “created a great climate of mistrust at the foreign authorities,“ that the prosecutor office had abusively released 22 sentenced criminals and, on the other side, had kept silent on dangerous murder cases.
Sollaku, 45, has been former President Sali Berisha’s legal adviser from 1992 to 1997.
He turned down all the claims considering the investigation as anti-constitutional, “a subversive act, institutional putsch with grave consequences in functioning of the independent institutions and respect of the citizens’ rights and freedom.“
The opposition said the governing majority ousted Sollaku to hide many corruptive and scandalous cases involving its top officials, including a government minister for whom the prosecutor office had asked the parliament lift immunity to investigative an alleged corruptive case.
Corruption and organized crime are major issues in Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries.
