Albanian Ex-President Arrested For Corruption
Former President of Albania, Ilir Meta, was arrested in Tirana on Monday on alleged corruption charges, his political party has announced.
Meta, 55, a fierce opponent of Prime Minister Edi Rama, was arrested in Tirana by officers of the National Investigation Bureau, according to local media.
Local television stations showed masked, plainclothes police officers taking Meta from his vehicle after he returned from neighbouring Kosovo ahead of holding a news conference.
The secretary general of the Freedom Party, Tedi Blushi, announced the arrest in a statement, calling it a “criminal kidnapping.”
There was no immediate comment from the prosecutor’s office.
After meeting Meta at the police department, his lawyer Genc Gjokutaj said the former president is being investigated for alleged corruption, money laundering and hiding personal income and property.
After serving as Albania’s president, serving between 2017 and 2022, Meta was being investigated for alleged illegal lobbying in the United States years ago.
He and his former wife also have been investigated on allegations of hiding their personal property and income.
The former president has continued to oppose the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, accusing it of running a “kleptocratic regime” and concentrating all legislative, administrative and judiciary powers in Rama’s hands.
Albania has continued to battle corruption in recent years, as it has strongly affected its democratic, economic and social development.
As Albania seeks European Union membership, judicial institutions created with the support of the Union and the United States have launched several investigations into former senior government officials allegedly involved in corruption, including Former prime minister and president Sali Berisha, now a lawmaker and leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, who is now under house arrest, after being accused of corruption.
Soon after Meta’s arrest, Romana Vlahutin, EU ambassador to Tirana when the judicial reform was approved in 2016 and now a European Council official, said on social platform X, “Justice reform in full force! There are no untouchables.”
Albanian Ex-President Arrested For Corruption is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
