Voice of America: How did the prosecution change for Saimir Tahiri?

In Albania, the prosecution said there were reasonable suspicions that former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri was involved in drug trafficking activity, giving support to the Habillas group, which originally hit them a few days ago in Italy.

At the assembly of the Parliament's Council of Mandata and Immmunities, the prosecution presented at a closed-door session additional evidence that, according to her, favouring Mr. Tahiri's arrest request.

Meanwhile, during the meeting she changed the version of Mr. Tahiri's trips with the vehicle she had previously sold to one of the Habilaj brothers. The hearing will proceed tomorrow with the defence of the former Interior Minister.

At the introduction of today's meeting, the prosecution demanded that discussions be held by closed doors because of some data that, according to Prosecutor for the Criminals' Leader Besim Hajdarmataj, constituted an investigative secret. But MPs on both sides demanded that the part that could be made public be presented first.

Discussing the request for the arrest of former minister Tahiri, Mr. Hajdarmataj said it came after the combination of information between the investigation launched earlier by the Prosecutor against the Habilla group in Albania and those who emerged from investigations in Italy that led to the arrest of Moses Habilaj and the search for another brother, Florian Halilaj, who resulted in being cousins of Mr. Tahiri:

“Procedure recording has joined two other proceedings we had in the investigation phase. And by uniting them all in the light of and in view of the emerging and publicized acts, a piece already taken and on the official road, we've harmonised each test with each other and we've come to that conviction”.

According to the Prosecutor's Director for War Crimes, there are reasonable doubts about the former minister's involvement in the Habillas activity: “Since we had presumptions of how these people exercised their activity in total calm, we have created doubt, that this help, referred to and recorded conversations, in a concrete case, creates reasonable conviction and suspicion that is involved in this activity and MP Saimir Tahiri<1.

For his part, Mr. Tahiri reminded them that the same prosecutor had investigated at his request in 2015, the charges made by former Police official Dritan Zagan about precisely the involvement of his vehicle in drug trafficking, and the IP prosecutor has deemed them groundless: “in no information compiled by citizens Dritan Zagan himself, or made known in the verbal form of his superiors, no mention of the vehicle with license plate plate 003 GB site was involved in the criminal activities of narcotics trafficking”, said Mr. Tahiri, reading the prosecution's decision to drop the case.

The hearing was subsequently interrupted so that the prosecution could present evidence and facts she considered secret. With the hearing resumed, Mr. Tahiri's attorney asked for three days since the prosecution had submitted additional arguments. Opposition representatives rejected it. “There is a request for postponement. You say we're in no hurry. No, no, we're in a hurry. That the prosecution's own request contains haste inside. Because if you remember, it was one of the questions we asked: You're afraid the evidence's broken, you're afraid it can escape, are you afraid it can re-profess such a crime? We're scared. And this is the speed of”, Deputy Enkeleed Alibeaj said.

Under Parliament Speaker Gramoz Ruci's decision, hearings for Mr. Tahiri will be held tomorrow morning.