PM Rama made a long and heavy statement in front of the Socialist parliamentary group, on Monday October 23rd, against the Albanian Serious Crime Prosecutor office as of its handling of the Tahiri/Habilaj case by saying that:
“Where does it come from this unknown zeal, of a prosecution office that has not moved a finger since it was born. They haven’t moved for evidences and facts that were evidently suspicious, and they want us to believe they are moving for a wiretapping? Not a finger was moved by this prosecutor office with an empty balance sheet.
Where do you think we live in, in which stone or wood era you find the courage to challenge the Constitution, the law, the Albanian State Parliament, to put in prison an MP with four pieces of poor sheets. […]
To whom and on behalf of whom did they want to sell this sheet to arrest an MP? These are the prosecutors, to whom the people have trusted to make justice for the worst crimes, to punish for murderers, traffickers, and the corrupters of this country. O Lord! Do they really fight criminals like this?! […] They should put themselves together” Rama said.
The current Minister of Interior, Fatmir Xhafaj has also publicly accused Albanian Prosecutors that they are being politically driven and they are unprofessional in the way how they are handling the Habilaj / Tahiri case. The declarations were made on Friday, October 20th simultaneously as the Parliamentary Commission was assessing Tahiri parliamentary immunity lifting.
Xhafaj stated that this “is an issue initiated by Italian justice and is being examined by it, and everyone else who speaks today doesn’t have and has no contribution to it. As I see it, [the prosecutors] just want to abuse with it”. Further on, the Interior Minister added: “What has been written by the Prosecutors, and as far as I have read it, this is not a thing that expresses the will of the law, nor it’s applicability as a proof. Which means in my view that we are in the case when individual prosecutors or segments of the Prosecutor’s office are politically used and politicizing a political situation.”
The declaration was an additional proof of support to Tahiri from SP leader Rama. Indeed, later the same day, the Socialist MPs member of the Parliamentary immunities commission voted in group against the lifting of Tahiri’s immunity.
