The Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime arrested a group of 10 persons last Thursday, including the judge of Kruja Enkeleda Hoxha, for being part of a suspected corruption scheme, that facilitated the release of inmates of Fushë-Kruja High Security Prison in change of monetary benefits. The arrests came after a long investigation done by the Special Anti-Corruption Structure (SPAK), who ordered the arrest of judge Hoxha. The decision came just before Hoxha was about to sign in court the release of Saimir Petani, who in the past had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder and was extradited from Italy to serve the sentence for the execution of Romeo Beqiri.
According to SPAK, who revealed the suspected criminal scheme, initially the inmates would choose Aldo Tabaku as their lawyer, who would then make possible through the help of the judge Enkeleda Hoxha the reduction of their sentence. The sum of the operation would go from 6 thousand euro to 12 thousand euro. Part of the scheme was also the court secretary, who is suspected to have intervened in the lottery of the court, in order for the cases to end up in the hands of judge Hoxha. A psychiatrist of the Institute of Forensic Medicine is suspected also to have submitted to the court acts of false psychiatric-legal expertise.
“Thanks to the investigations […] it became possible to identify a genuine criminal scheme according to which convicted persons who were serving their sentences in Fushë-Krujë prison received reduced sentences in exchange of giving irregular benefits,” said SPAK.
Enkeleda Hoxha has been in the centre of the media attention many times in the last years for her involvement in the release of inmates that media has described as “famous names of the crime world”, such as Endrit Dokle, Genc Tafili and Hekuran Billa. Billa was killed shortly after his release from prison last year. All of the above-mentioned names were sentenced before to life imprisonment. For her involvement in the process of facilitating the release of inmates, the High Inspectorate of Justice demanded Hoxha’s dismissal last year, with the motivation that she violated the figure of the judge; as a result, she is still on trail by the High Judicial Council.
While wiretapping the secretary of the Kruja Court, SPAK revealed also another corruption case within the case. In the wiretaps of SPAK, the secretary of the court communicated with the well-known cardiologist Edvin Prifti, asking him a favor to assist her mother’s operation. As a result, at the request of SPAK the court decided to suspend from duty Prifti, who is now suspected for passive corruption. Part of the operation were also two nurses. After the control made at Prifti’s house and office, around 350,000 euro were found. According to his lawyer, in none of the interceptions can be verified that Prifti had received money in form of corruption. The lawyer considered also the presence of that amount of money in his house and office as totally legal, that came as a result of a selling deal that the doctor had recently made.
SPAK’s investigations and indictments have been in the center of the attention in the last years, as being a transformational force in the justice reform. Since 2018, when the process of evaluation of judges and prosecutors began, around 190 judges and prosecutors have left the justice system due to the vetting process. Over the last year, a total of 32 decisions were made for the dismissal of 25 judges and 7 prosecutors. Both the United States and the EU have requested that further investigations should be made for all of those judges and prosecutors that couldn’t pass the vetting process.
