FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
"Let him become a man and come and face the court," declared Sali Berisha as he left the assembly courtyard, a day after the Special Court approved the request of his defense lawyers that Edi Rama be called as one of the witnesses in the "Partizani" file in the process against him. A day earlier, unlike SPAK, which had hesitated to ask Rama about the odyssey of turning a sports field into a construction site, the court decided to accept the request that he also be heard to shed light on this issue.
"We will be face to face and tell him to be a man, not to ask for a session without the media, but to ask for the media there and let the Albanians come and see who Edi Rama is in that affair and what corrupt acts he has committed by changing the destination, without any request from the owners," Berisha said this Thursday to journalists.
But, to understand this expected duel before the GJKKO, one must know the background of this story that dates back two decades.
When SPAK released the 500-page file, in which it argued why Berisha should be taken as a defendant, it accused him of having exploited the position of prime minister to favor his son-in-law, Jamarber Malltezi, by removing the land of which the latter was one of the owners from the list of sports grounds. “As soon as Berisha came to power, the owners, led by Jamarber Malltezi, organized themselves and immediately applied for the privatization of the Partizani Complex, which was built on the land of 5 families, one of which is the Begeja family, for which the Prime Minister’s son-in-law is one of the heirs,” claims the accusation, which also touches on the main point over which Rama and Berisha will clash, that of removal from the list of sports facilities. It states that with the decision signed by Sali Berisha in the position of KKRTSH president on November 21, 2006, the amendment to the regulatory plan of the City of Tirana was approved, which included the area on "Frosina Plaku" Street, which was changed from a "sports area" to a "residential area".
But the truth is a little different according to Berisha's lawyers. They accept the November 2006 decision, but insist that it was preceded by another decision by the former mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama. They say that it was Rama's Municipal Council that first changed the destination, without even waiting for a request from the owners. They add that Rama acted urgently, in just three weeks, while in Berisha's office as head of the national council of the territory, the file was delayed for seven months. They insist that, just like with the Partizani club, Berisha acted with all the changes that came to him from the Municipality of Tirana, after a decision of the Constitutional Court on the overturning of the Black Bird, which obliged the central government to recognize the independence of the local government.
All these arguments were glossed over in the SPAK indictment, where moreover, although the decision of the Tirana Municipality was mentioned, Edi Rama was not even dared to be mentioned by name. It simply stated that “with decision no. 132, dated 08.06.2006 of the Chairman of the Council for the Regulation of the Territory, from the Municipality of Tirana, it was decided to change the destination, turning it into a residential area”, the territory that belonged to the “Partizani” sports club.
For all of this, SPAK did not even call Edi Rama to question him, just as it has hesitated to do so for hotter files such as those on incinerators, healthcare concessions, etc.
The fact that Rama, although a protagonist, was neither mentioned nor called to testify became Berisha's battle horse against the biased investigation that the special prosecution was conducting. His defense won on this point, raising many doubts about the integrity of the prosecutors.
But apparently what SPAK could not do, the GJKKO decided to do. It granted Berisha and Malltez's requests by accepting their request that Edi Rama be questioned as a witness in the courtroom, thus giving the opposition leader the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to his rival: "to ask the media there and let the Albanians come and see who Edi Rama is in that affair."
The 'Partizani' case, of which this episode is a part, went to trial on May 19, 2025. SPAK has filed charges of passive corruption of high-ranking officials against former Prime Minister Sali Berisha. His son-in-law, Jamarbër Malltezi, is under indictment for corruption, but also for money laundering.
According to SPAK, he has benefited from income worth 5.4 million euros from a construction business in an irregular manner thanks to government decisions taken by his father-in-law. © Lapsi.al
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