TIRANA, October 22 – The son-in-law of chairman of Democratic Party (DP) Sali Berisha, 50-year-old Jamarber Malltezi was arrested at the Rinas Airport in Tirana on Saturday on charges of corruption and money laundering in connection with a land deal involving a Tirana property.
The same charges were pressed on Berisha and prosecution authority SPAK which ordered him not to leave the country.
“On these charges I declare that they are absolutely without any basis and purely and fully political accusations from (current prime minister) Edi Rama,” he said at a news conference late Saturday.
Rama did not immediately respond to Berisha’s claim.
The Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime office alleges that Berisha’s son-in-law exploited Berisha’s position as prime minister to privatize land in Tirana owned by the country’s Defense Ministry and return it to its previous owners, who immediately sold it at a low price to Malltezi, who built apartments on the land.
The charges come three years after Interior Minister Taulant Balla, then head of the governing Socialist Party’s parliamentary grouping, sent a file with allegations against Malltezi and Berisha to the prosecutor’s office.
In May 2021 the U.S. government barred Berisha and his close family from entering the country because of alleged involvement in corruption. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that during Berisha’s 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister, the politician was involved in corrupt acts and had used his power for his own benefit and to enrich his political allies and his family members.
In the meantime Berisha said that he was not afraid of arrest because as he said he had tried this. “This helps our cause, motivates it even more. It multiplies Sali Berisha into hundreds of thousands. I am fighting for victory, how can I be afraid?’ said the DP Berisha, who had declared that the opposition would step up resistance against the Rama government on Friday, a day before these developments. /argumentum.al
