Secret service chief with ties to opposition called to testify in parliament by governing MPs, following leak of document allegedly showing he ordered SHISH to spy on top
police officials
TIRANA, March 5 – The head of Albania’s secret service, Visho Ajazi Lika, has been called to report in front of the parliamentary commission on security and explain why a group of high-ranking police officers had been spied on by the service. The call comes after a document that revealed the spying was leaked to a government-friendly media outlet.
The report at the commission has been postponed for next week after a first meeting between Ajazi and the commission ended early on technical grounds. Everyone in the room had to have a security certificate before the meeting could proceed, according to Albanian law, but several MPs did not have the certificate on them, and Ajazi’s had expired a few weeks ago and needed to be renewed.
The head of the State Information Service, or SHISH as it is known by it Albanian acronym, has come under fire by the ruling Socialists for his strong political ties to the main opposition Democratic Party that nominated him when it was in government two years ago.
The leaked document showed that Ajazi had asked his employees to spy on ten police officers recently nominated by the Socialist government.
The head of Albania’s national security commission in parliament, Spartak Braho said they had called Ajazi to report on the issue. Braho also compared SHISH’s alleged practices with those of its communist-era predecessor, the feared Sigurimi. He added that if proved true all the persons involved would be held accountable.
Private television station Top Channel showed the leaked document in which the agency’s spies were ordered to collect
information on new appointments in the police force made by the new government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who took office in mid-September.
The document was dated Dec. 2, 2013. The tapping order included senior police officers nominated recently in their posts.
Braho also hinted Monday that such an activity from the secret police coincided with a parliamentary inquiry launched by the main opposition Democratic Party against new appointments in the police force.
“The agenda of SHISH is the agenda of the Democratic Party, which is accusing police chiefs of having ties to organized crime,” said Braho, a lawmaker of the Socialist Movement for Integration, the governing Socialists’ main ally.
Ajazi was nominated in the post in August 2012 by the former centre-right government of ex-Prime Minister Sali Berisha. The local media has hinted that he is still serving the former prime minister and has provided little information to the current administration, which is facing a growing problem with violent crime after several car bomb attacks.
At the same time, interior minister Saimir Tahiri has asked the SHISH to show the results of such collected information on its police officers.
The interior ministry has continuously complained recently, following about three dozen explosives in the country, that the SHISH has provided “zero information” to the government.
According to Albanian law, the head of SHISH is proposed by the prime minister and the nomination has to be approved by the president.
Despite the displeasure, however, it would not be easy for the new government to move Ajazi from the post. The opposition Democrats are daily complaining that the new government is attacking the independent institutions, including SHISH.
President Bujar Nishani, who had also been nominated by the Democrats, has made it clear that he approves of the spy chief’s record and has no intention of approving his replacement.
