Supreme Court drops case against Mediu

TIRANA, Sep 14 – Albania’s Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a breach of duty case against a re-elected lawmaker and also former defense minister, Fatmir Mediu.
The court said it could not continue a case against ex-defense minister Fatmir Mediu who has regained his parliamentarian immunity after re-election as lawmaker.
Mediu had lost immunity and was charged of breach of duty over a series of explosions that ripped through the disposal factory outside Tirana on March 15, 2008, leaving 26 people dead and 302 injured and also damaging 5,500 houses.
Twenty-eight other defendants are tried at the Tirana district court while Mediu, as a senior official, was referred to the Supreme Court.
Mediu was named as environment minister in the new governing cabinet, expecting to be voted into the position by parliament.
Reacting to the court verdict, family members of the dead victims of last year’s blast threatened they would turn to vigilantism.
“I will pass on to vigilante as there is no other way,” said Zamira Durda. She had lost her seven year old son in the blast. “Why my child does not live? Why is he not going today at the third class? I want an answer for these,” she told reporters at the court’s entrance.
After that Prime Minister Sali Berisha, first with a statement and then at a news conference himself, said that his cabinet was open to any investigation and enjoyed no immunity.
The same reaction came also from Mediu, whose lawyers had asked differently at the court.
The opposition came out strongly protesting against such a verdict and urging further legal actions.
Fatmir Mediu is leader of the Republican Party and is to become the new environment minister in Berisha’s new cabinet based on a bilateral deal between the two leaders of their respective political parties.
Last week Mediu’s inclusion in the new cabinet sparked anger.
Fatmir Mediu was charged with breach of duty, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. The breach of duty charges stemmed mainly from the decision to allow the factory to operate near populated areas and to use military resources to transport the munitions to it.
Mediu is the only one whose case was separated and was dealt with at the Supreme Court. The others moved to the Tirana district court.
Mediu resigned in the wake of the disaster, prompting calls at the time from opposition parties for conservative Prime Minister Sali Berisha to resign.
Opposition Socialists claim the governing Democrats have tried to hinder an impartial investigation by exerting pressure on Albania’s judiciary. They have also accused Prime Minister Berisha’s government of corruption regarding the disposal of obsolete weapons.
Mediu has a new mandate and is a member of the new parliament.
Opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama has said that Berisha should be ashamed for accepting to have Mediu in the new cabinet.
A group of journalists said in an open letter that Mediu’s presence in the Berisha cabinet represented a grave moral and political problem.
Now the victims’ families speak differently. It is 17 months since the deadly blast and they still do not know who was responsible for the deaths.