FLASH
Shkruar nga Mero Baze
The most serious thing is the order itself for the arrest of Ilir Meta, former President of the Republic, former Prime Minister and former Speaker of the Parliament of Albania.
Altin Dumani expressed regret during his report to the Assembly about the way Ilir Meta was arrested a year ago, leaving the responsibility to the State Police that carried out the execution.
The truth is that the way he was arrested made a lot of noise and was an ugly scene, but we are all aware that Ilir Meta's emotional state had been aggravated for months by news of his possible arrest and paranoia about "traitors" in the party and at home.
For its part, politics failed to find someone more professional to carry out that arrest with dignity, and it is still unclear who overreacted more at the moment of the arrest, Ilir Meta or the police.
This necessarily required a serious investigation that Altin Dumani himself, or at least the Tirana Prosecutor's Office, could request.
But I think that in the story of Ilir Meta's arrest, the manner of the arrest is not the most serious thing.
It's just an ugly episode.
The most serious thing is the order itself for the arrest of Ilir Meta, former President of the Republic, former Prime Minister and former Speaker of the Parliament of Albania.
The rush to arrest someone who, like no other, has held the three highest state offices in Albanian history, a year before charges were filed, could only be justified if he had been caught red-handed for national treason or a murder in progress.
No matter how much we love or hate Ilir Meta as a person, we have a state obligation to preserve the human dignity of those who have been at the head of the state.
Today's scene in Paris with former President Sarkozy shows how a country can simultaneously honor justice and its leaders.
The protracted investigation and the conclusion of the file, as it seems, with accusations of his wife's abuse of a credit card belonging to a cousin from the US, for whose business they had lobbied in Tirana, is a legal massacre.
I am not against being investigated and tried for this criminal offense, but he could never have been arrested for this a year ago, without any risk to justice and without public office.
Ilir Meta is today a free citizen, without any state function, except for the formal title of a party that does not really exist. He posed no risk to investigation or trial in freedom.
I do not agree with those who consider Ilir Meta to be a man free from corruption.
As a journalist, I have raised many doubts about him, and some of my writings may even be part of the investigation file.
But his file sent to court is, beyond anything else, evidence of the professional incompetence of SPAK prosecutors, who even in the case of Ilir Meta are unable to seek and find serious corruption affairs, and end up in matters related to his wife's shopping for a credit card in the US.
This is a much more serious and discrediting event for Albanian justice than the stupidity of a police officer on the highway, or Ilir Meta's lack of self-restraint when faced with the arrest order issued by the GJKKO and SPAK.
Therefore, if one must express regret for the detention of Ilir Meta, one must express regret for his unnecessary, unmotivated, and legally unfounded arrest.
But above all, for the fear of our courts, from the first instance of the GJKKO to the Supreme Court, who repeat like robots the decision to keep him in prison, as if Ilir Meta had the power to tear up the statements of American banks to hide some crime.
Compared to the "correctness" that the same courts have shown with Sali Berisha and his son-in-law, who released them after the file was closed, even though it is formally more serious than Meta's, it shows that the new justice system has lost every standard, every priority and above all, its dignity.
Instead of a battle against impunity, it has turned into a political campaign.
Therefore, if anyone should apologize to Ilir Meta today, it is those who issued the arrest warrant outside any standard and those who still keep him in prison, not that policeman on the highway who had only two options: either let Ilir Meta escape and remain unemployed, or arrest him and endure his mother's insults.
The shame is heavy, but no heavier than the shame that Ilir Meta is in prison today, still unsentenced.
Lini një Përgjigje