The government’s special Operation Force of Law (OFL) is redundant and shouldn’t be extended, according to Arben Kraja, the head of the Special Prosecution against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK).
Kraja suggested that the OFL would better complete the cases it has launched and be gone, because it is redundant and duplicates the work that prosecutors normally do under Albania’s anti-mafia law.
“OFL will continue to complete those processes that are under trial, because they can not be left halfway. The rest, I think is unnecessary, because we have the anti-mafia law, which meets all the criteria and all the possibilities to carry out successful seizures and confiscation,” Kraja stated on Thursday for RTSH’s “31 Minuta” show.
The government created the OFL to confiscate assets thought to have been created through criminal activity.
In its nearly one-year history, the OFL has managed to confiscate zero assets.
A SPAK report in December found that the OFL has presented SPAK with 226 requests for seizures or confiscations in the last year.
Prosecutors have forwarded 168 cases to the court. In 42 other cases, prosecutors asked for asset seizure orders to be lifted, while for 50 cases they required the OFL to bring additional evidence. The rest of the files are still under consideration by prosecutors.
The one-year mandate of the OFL ends in 2020. It’s not clear whether the government will extend it, or discontinue the operation.
