Only 48 hours after the alleged Agron Xhafaj wiretaps were published by the opposition, Prime Minister Edi Rama declared that the recordings of his Minister of the Interior Fatmir Xhafaj’s brother have been analyzed by a prestigious lab and have been determined as fake.
So, on May 16, 11:14 AM, exactly 48 hours after the publication of the wiretaps, Rama stated:
Yesterday, I received the scientific analysis from one of the world’s best laboratories. That was enough for me to tell you that we are not facing any incriminating evidence against the minister. We are facing inauthentic material aiming at destabilizing the country.
His declaration is not to be taken lightly, as, with it, Rama has come to a public conclusion in the name of the Prosecution Office, and has publicly come to the defense of a person who is still under investigation. This, in itself, raises serious doubts regarding the independence, transparency, and enforcement of the laws during this investigation.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister’s declarations raises another question: was Rama telling the truth or merely bluffing? Was there ever an analysis of the wiretap by a UK laboratory?
The chances of this having happened are slim, even slimmer if it was done officially. Looking at the timeline of the events, it is impossible that the Prosecution Office went through all the legal and professional protocols to order such an analysis.
May 14, 2018:
At 11:30 AM, the Democratic Party makes the wiretap public.
May 15, 2018:
In the morning, officers from the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office retrieved the recording from the PD headquarters.
Therefore, the Prime Minister claimed that, within 48 hours, only 16 of which are official working hours, the following took place:
- The Prosecution Office decided to begin verifying the recording;
- The Prosecution Office assigned a prosecutor to the case;
- The Prosecutor assigned a court police officer;
- The Prosecutor drafted a preemptive investigation plan;
- The Prosecutors received the recording;
- The Prosecutors drafted and sent an official audio recording analysis request to their UK counterparts;
- The UK counterparts reviewed the request, approved it, and sent a response to Tirana;
- The Prosecutors sent for Agron Xhafaj;
- Agron Xhafaj travelled from Vlora to Tirana and presented himself to the Prosecution Office;
- Agron Xhafaj was interrogated by the Prosecutors;
- The Prosecution Laboratory recorded a sample of Agron Xhafaj’s voice in accordance to all the legal standards;
- The wiretap recording and Xhafaj’s voice sample were sent to the UK counterparts physically (as opposed to electronically);
- The UK experts analyzed the wiretap and the voice sample;
- The UK experts drafted their official report;
- The UK experts sent the official report to Tirana;
- The Albanian Prosecution Office received the report;
- The Prosecution Office had enough time to inform Prime Minister Rama (it is not known why) of the report’s conclusions;
- The Prime Minister declared the report’s conclusions in a public statement;
It is hard to believe that all of the above took place in such a short amount of time, and even if it did, it is impossible that it all happened in accordance with the official investigative protocols on the part of the prosecution.
