TIRANA, May 20 – Prosecutors are looking into the potential criminal records of several candidates running in the upcoming June 21 local administrative elections, General Prosecutor Adriatik Llalla said this week.
Llalla said the institution he leads was carefully sifting through the backgrounds of the candidates after Western diplomats made statements that they had information several of the people proposed by political parties had criminal pasts.
“The prosecution is in the process of verifying and investigating some cases of candidates denounced by political parties, institutions and individuals,” Llalla said. “We are still in the investigation part of the process.”
He made the comments to reporters after signing a cooperation agreement with the Central Election Commission, the first agreement of its kind for an electoral process.
Lalla said that the prosecution already has a tradition of observing electoral processes, which are important for Albania’s integration in the European Union.
Lalla said investigators from the institution he leads will provide assistance for election officials to make sure the process is fair and legal, protecting it from any undue interference.
Representatives of the United States and European Union in Tirana said earlier this month they had indications that several local election candidates had criminal records, but provided no names in their public statements, urging the parties to remove them from the lists instead.
