Today, the High Prosecutorial Council decided to revoke General Prosecutor Arta Marku’s order to transfer Serious Crimes Prosecutors Besim Hajdarmataj and Olsian Çela to regional prosecution offices in Pogradec and Berat. Earlier the Administrative Court had also revoked Marku’s order.
General Prosecutor Marku had transferred the prosecutors on September 20th, 2018. Hajdarmataj was also the prosecutor in the Tahiri case.
Marku’s transfers started with prosecutors of the Shullazi gang case, Elisabeta Imeraj dhe Ened Nakuçi.
In August 2018, Elisabeta Ymeraj was appointed head of the Tirana Prosecution Office. However, as required by law, she can’t drop her assigned cases. Prosecutor Ened Nakuçi presented the Prosecution Office with a medical note according to which he had to leave work for 6 months.
Following prosecutor Nakuçi’s leave, Donika Prela, the newly-appointed head of the Serious Crimes Prosecution, appointed prosecutor Besim Hajdarmataj to this case. Hajdarmataj admitted that he accepted his assignment to this case, although the legal basis for his appointment wasn’t clear from the start, as he was appointed without a lot being drawn.
When Hajdarmataj participated in his first hearing, on September 11, Shullazi’s defense attorneys objected his appointment. Thus, on September 19, Prela drew a lot with the 17 prosecutors of the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office, in order to determine the next Shullazi case prosecutor.
The prosecutors considered the new lot illegal and opposed it, given than prosecutors who had conducted investigations to that point in time were still available, so there was no need for new prosecutors to be elected.
General Prosecutor Marku responded to their objections with disciplinary measures: she decided to open disciplinary investigations into 10 prosecutors, and to transfer three others to regional Prosecution Offices, namely Besim Hajdarmataj in Pogradec, Sonila Muhametaj in Puka, and Olsian Çela in Berat.
Marku also dismissed the head of the Prosecution Offices Inspection Directory, Sokol Stojani, after he refused to investigate his 10 colleagues.
