Meta defended in “Basha” style

20/06/2011 15:20

The Supreme Court started the trial against Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Ilir Meta, accused for active corruption. The accusations regard the video recorded by Dritan Pirfti one year ago.

After the presentation, the Court heard the preliminary pretenses of
Ilir Meta’s defensive lawyers, since he was not present. Ilir Meta’s
defensive lawyer built his strategy based on a previous decision of the
same Court, which considered as invalid a series of investigations sent
by the prosecution against Former Minister Lulzim Basha, due to the
expiration of legal deadlines.

Standing to the argument of expired investigation deadlines, which,
according to him consist of three months, the lawyer says that since all
investigative actions carried out by the Prosecution were undertaken from
April 2nd to May 9th, they must be considered as invalid. More
specifically, the defense requests the Court to declare as invalit: the request for removing Meta’s immunity; asking the opinion
of foreign experts; interrogating citizens for further information;
communicating the accusation to Mr. Meta; sending the
request to the Supreme Court. The lawyer also adds that video
registrations towards people with immunity are illegal.

“The expertise of the American expert, Glen Bard, must also be considered invalid, because, according to the law, the prosecution should have
asked the defense if they would agree to chose him as an expert or not.

“We do not deny that the conversation has taken place, but we say that
the transcript has been manipulated by Dritan Prifti and other persons
for political purposes. For this reason we asked the conversation to be
clarified as it should”.

The defense lawyer confirmed that the prosecution has collected proofs by violating the procedural law. According to him, the clock that hid the
camera, used by the Prosecution as proof, cannot be considered as such,
because the experts extracted the video from a lap-top, and not from the
clock. After the preliminary requests from lawyers Petrit Serjani and
Gezim Veleshnja, Prosecutor Bujar Sheshi asked for preparation time time, and the process was adjourned for June
27th.

Beside the media, this trial was also followed by OSCE observers.

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