FLASH
Shkruar nga Mero Baze
At least in the case of Erion Veliaj and this irresponsible process against Ilir Meta, this article has been violated with both feet!
Yesterday, several portals used for lynching propaganda by segments of SPAK published with great fanfare the news that Erion Veliaj will appear at the Court of Appeal to challenge the arrest measure and that he has even paid financial guarantees to secure his release on bail. Later, news emerged that the Court did not accept those guarantees and left him in prison.
Of course, everything was a lie, at least from the office of prosecutor Olsi Dado, who seems to have turned this process into a personal battle. Erion Veliaj had neither appealed any arrest measure yesterday, nor had he paid any financial guarantee, since the trial for his arrest measure in the Appeals Court ended a month ago. Yesterday was a formal procedure by the prosecutor defending his decision to keep Veliaj in prison, which is already a fait accompli. Veliaj was not even in court at all. But the news was to humiliate him.
This lynching process by SPAK and the wickedness and cynicism with which it acts against the personal life of a citizen and his human rights, has exceeded every human limit, every European and American convention. And above all, it has created the conviction in a large part of public opinion that vindictive methods and repression are dominating the activity of SPAK due to the prior political support it has received from the socialist majority. And this is now a problem for the socialist majority as well.
Equally flagrant was what happened two days ago, when the GJKKO made an absurd decision against Ilir Meta, requesting a six-month postponement of the investigation against him, while also filing charges against him.
When you charge a defendant, all the reasons to keep him in custody on the grounds that he is destroying evidence disappear. At least this is the standard they set with Sali Berisha and his son-in-law — of course under their pressure.
I have no personal feelings for Ilir Meta, but the arbitrary postponement of the investigation deadline while keeping him in prison is done only to prevent the measure of arrest from being changed. In practice, SPAK is consolidating an inhuman practice: it arrests you once, publicly degrades you with its own slander in the media, then seizes the phones of the entire neighborhood and starts looking for evidence about you. If it doesn't find anything, it postpones the deadlines endlessly until it finds something, and in the end the court sentences you to pre-trial detention.
The case of Ilir Meta is blatant at this point. He has been under investigation for three years, he has been in prison for a year or so, and the investigation deadline has been extended. But then why did they rush to arrest him halfway through, when they had all this work with the investigation? He has been president of Albania, prime minister and speaker of Parliament. And if he escaped, justice would not have to be upset – he would not go to another planet. They could continue their work and file charges.
The fact that they neither know how to investigate nor respect deadlines and human freedoms, but only know how to arrest, speaks volumes about the humiliating level to which investigation has fallen in the "new justice", and the arrogant level to which political lynching has risen.
Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Albania is obliged to protect its citizens from arbitrary detention and to guarantee them a fair trial. In the event of detention, it must ensure humane conditions of detention. Article 3 of the ECHR prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.
At least in the case of Erion Veliaj and this irresponsible trial of Ilir Meta, this article has been violated with both feet. Moreover, Veliaj's lawyers were given less than half a day to review 26,400 pages of investigative documents before defending the detention case on February 12, 2025. And what was even more flagrant is that during the detention assessment hearings, the court was "concerned" that Veliaj "showed no remorse" and "refused to accept responsibility for the acts." This suggests that the court considers you guilty if you do not admit your guilt in advance. But if you admit it, the process is over. Meanwhile, he claims to be innocent and to prove this, this entire humiliating process is taking place.
This is a flagrant violation of Article 6 §2 of the European Convention by the Court and SPAK, commenting during the preliminary proceedings on Veliaj’s “lack of remorse” and refusal to accept responsibility – using this as a reason to keep him in detention. This implies a clear bias for guilt rather than innocence. This open hostility of the court towards the defendant is a clear indication of a lack of impartiality and, consequently, a denial of a fair trial.
My colleague Andi Bushati, a consistent critic of SPAK and the new justice system, unlike me, thinks that behind this lynching campaign against Erion Veliaj is Edi Rama and the Socialist Party, which no longer needs Veliaj. Even though I know it is not true, I do not oppose it to the end – if the majority that has given SPAK a mandate for “new justice” allows it to trample on the European Convention on Human Rights with both feet and behave like a new power in a republic of prosecutors, who boast in stadiums with preferential tickets, while they put people in prison because someone cut them off from the stadium ticket.
Until politics makes it clear to us: whether we are a free Republic guaranteed by the European Convention and the Strasbourg Court, or are we in the hands of the frustrations of a prosecutor who is ready to put in prison even the one who beat him in a soccer match – we should all feel threatened. Because when all these cases are dropped in Strasbourg, I don't know who will be held responsible for ruined lives, people lynched in public trials and millions of euros at the expense of the Albanian state. It is certain that we have nothing to ask of this Olsi Dado – he himself never thought that one day we would trust him with our freedoms.
Edi Rama's campaign for a European passport does not just mean work permits in Europe, construction of roads, towers or airports, but the building of a European state.
This justice is unacceptable even to the Zulu tribes.
Lini një Përgjigje