Tough lessons from the Xhuvani case

TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
It is normal for the general public to feel anger and shock when four people are killed in a senseless shootout. But Kostandin Xhuvani’s involvement in the Ante Grand night club carnage and his identification by prosecutors as the main perpetrator makes things different.
That’s because the son of a prominent Socialist member of parliament had already been convicted in another killing in 2011, only to be set free after less then two years, which many commentators at the time saw as application of double standards for the well-connected and the powerful.
Such double standards are not unique to Albania, but that does not excuse the gravity of what has happened. Tough lessons must now be drawn from what has happened.
One lesson, that of resignation on moral grounds, has already been put to use. The MP and mother of the accused shooter, Luiza Xhuvani, resigned in tears at a press conference Tuesday night responding the public anger and to erase perceptions of double standards in the future.
It was no coincidence that she was flanked by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who had earlier been pelted with a torrent of angry comments on social media channels seeking the MP’s resignation and accountability for those responsible for the shooter’s light sentence in the earlier killing.
Rama responded with a scripted statement, straight out of crisis communications textbooks, declaring the justice would be done and that the law is equal to all. He then proceeded to use the press conference to politically counterattack opposition politicians who had blamed him all day politically for what they said was the authorities’ shielding of the troubled young man who prosecutors have now charged with the four murders. There was talk of previous criminal incidents after his release from prison, which he had escaped unscathed.
Politics aside, Rama has not hidden the fact that he is a personal friend of the parents of the shooter. But in this case, there is little he or the Xhuvanis can or should do to protect from justice someone who is clearly very troubled and must pay the price for his actions in a court of law.
The MP’s resignation is to be commended, and it is clear neither her nor her husband, Gjergj Xhuvani, a respected movie director, have anything to do with the criminal and addiction-riddled world in which their son appears to have been caught up.
Yet the fact remains that their son likely received preferential treatment in the 2011 killing. Had he been another man, he would have likely been in prison on Tuesday, instead of intoxicated and armed in an underground night club — and four people would be alive today.
The main lesson from this tragedy is that there are real and deadly consequences when justice is not done properly. The law should be equal for all, in spirit and in practice, a pledge the prime minister took on Tuesday. It remains to be seen how officials now and in the future will keep up with that pledge.
It is also important to focus not just on the accused perpetrator but the victims as well. Regardless of the circumstances, the authorities should have issued a statement to honor the service of one of the murdered men, Edison Jaho, 36, a father of two and a retired army corporal who had served his country in peacekeeping missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chad. Nor does it serve the image of Albania abroad when one of those killed was an innocent bar-goer from Italy, Giampaolo Azzola, 55, a member of the international business community in Tirana. The other two men must also be remembered, for their lives were cut so short at 19 and 38.