“Anti-Mafia Law assists the justice system in confiscating property“

The Justice Ministry has warned of the creation of a separate independent agency that will investigate these cases, but Fazliu says he is not a follower of the creation of new mechanisms.

The National Co-ordinator for Combating Economic Crimes, Albanian Fazliu, has declared that in 2019 of about 9m euros of frozen or sequentified wealth has been confiscated only 1m euros of assets, while in 2020 of about 20m euros, frozen or sequentified, about 500 thousand euros have been confiscated.

Fazliu regarding the concept-document of the Law for Confiscating Unjustified Wealth says how co-ordinator has now demanded seven years.

According to him, this law, which is known as the anti-mafia law, will significantly impact the number of final seizures.

I've been looking for this institution and co-ordinator since July 2014, so we've been looking for this law for about seven years... Since we've asked for it, of course, I welcome it to the quality of the National Coordinator for Fighting Economic Crimes, an approval of such a law since it will greatly facilitate the work of the prosecution or even the justice system, since in most countries of the world in which this law exists, the figure of final seizures has been significantly increased following the adoption of this law... As for how much this will help us is very obvious and very clear this law can and will help justice institutions not only the prosecution but also the police and courts because it's easier to achieve until final seizure since the difference between the current laws we have in force and the seizures without condemnation is that we don't need to have a punishment act of punishment for any person in order to claim the confiscation of property”, he stressed for Kosovas.

Regarding the idea of establishing an independent agency that would investigate persons suspected of not complying with wealth and revenues, Fazliu, who is also a prosecutor at the chief prosecutor's office, says he is not an altar of creating new mechanisms.

But it adds that the processing group must choose what is the most efficient way to address these issues.

Which is the best model that I can't exactly know I'm not a follower of creating new mechanisms... So far it is not that Kosovo has had any apparent success in confiscating assets... What would be the best independent agency or prosecution is early to be tried, but the working group must analyse this issue well so that they can come to the right conclusion that whether it is better and more effective to have a new agency or will be done by the Prosecutor, the practices of the countries of the world recognise different agencies as the prosecutorial system”, he said.

According to the Co-ordinator for Combating Economic Crimes, this law does not violate any provisions of the Constitution of Kosovo or the European Convention for Human Rights, since the seizure is considered civil nature rather than criminal procedure.

While it has been said that even citizens of Kosovo can submit to this law, Fazliu says a higher standard of testing for citizens is needed than in official persons.

“As far as citizens are concerned there is a basis or a higher standard of proving than in official persons, and this also makes sense because official persons receive salaries from the Ministry of Finance and they are supposed to be able at any moment to justify their wealth, and if you don't come up to such a thing, then there may be seizures of wealth. Since, if it's a citizen, there's a different modal that is otherwise called the seizure model I NREM, where the seizure is directed at wealth and not to the person where there is no penalty action, yet it requires a test of general criminal activity, and the fourth model, which is the most aggressive model in the world, the seizure of unwarranted property, is not required to engage either directly or indirectly with any crime, but on one side is about the actual property that one person has and the declared income, if there is no compliance between actual property and the person's stated income, then the person in question is obliged to justify wealth if the court fails to justify it, if the court is forced to take the act of prosecution, he said.

Fazliu says 1.5m euros have been frozen for 2021, but have no information yet that there are seizures in this three months.

While, in 2019 of about 9m euros in frozen or sequistified wealth has been confiscated only 1m euros of assets, while in 2020 of about 20m euros in frozen or sequential wealth, an estimated 500,000 euros have been confiscated.

According to him, no official profile person is involved, but all are citizens who have committed criminal acts.

“About the year 2021 or the first three months of January-March data we are still analyzing and roughly collecting is about a total of 1.5m euros in frozen and sequentised wealth. And we're still in the process of gathering them and we have no information about whether in this first three months there are seizures. And as for the last two years of 2019 and 2020 in 2019, we have, for example, had about 9m euros in frozen or sequentized wealth and about 1m euros in totally confiscated assets. And in 2020, we had about 20m euros in frozen or sequencing wealth, while there were about 500 thousand euros in total confiscated... It's also about criminal cases involving money laundering, but what you care about is if there are people in these cases of official profiles and not they're the head of various civil offenses that have either been frozen or seized or property... there's everything there is, there are houses, cars, gold benches, so different assets”, he says.

Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu during yesterday has warned that in the coming week the task force will be formed for the seizure of unwarranted property.

On April 13th, the Kosovo government adopted the concept-document that paves the way for drafting a special law for confiscating illegal property. The new law was said to enable the seizure of illegal property even in the absence of a conviction act.