Ilir Meta trial started

Four hours later than the notification, the Penal College, headed by Judge Adrian Dvorani, gave Court’s decisions for the preliminary requests of the defense, rejecting the most important one, that of suspending the case.

 The Supreme Court rejected also Ilir Meta’s request for not calling MP Dritan Prifti as a witness, the person who made the registration and sent it to the media, since he is being trialed for a case connected to the current one, hence giving to the Prosecution the right to have him on top of the witness list.

But the court ruled in favor of Mr. Meta for not accepting the verification that British and American experts made to the video registration that connected Ilir Meta with the corruption affair, stating that it was made outside the legal procedures.

The prosecution insisted to have the same foreign experts doing the next authenticity verification of the video file, this time with the permission of the Court.

The defense opposed a further verification of the video by foreign experts, insisting that the Court has used Albanian ones in previous cases.

The judge panel retired for the decision, and afterwards they will decide who will be the expert that will verify the authenticity of the video file that shows Former Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta asking corruptive favors for public tenders.

The next session will be held on July 22nd, and will start with a list of witnesses. The first one will be MP Dritan Prifti, considered as the key witness in this case. After him there will be a number of well-known Albanian businessmen, such as Rezart Taçi, Ymer and Skender Tola, Agim Rrapaj and several others.

The Court accepted all the evidence presented by the prosecution, such as the video recorder owned by Mr. Prifti and the tape that broadcasted the scandal at Top Channel’s program “Fiks Fare”, and also the entire respective documentation of the tenders that were filed at the Ministry of Economy during this time.

The Court accepted a verification made by the defense in Italy, and the documentations of the request made by the Prosecution in 2002 for removing the immunity of MP Prifti.

After the session, Ilir Meta’s defensive lawyers made this declaration:

“The Court of Serious Crimes and the Prosecution have precedents when they have used Albanian experts for verifying the authenticity of evidence. They have found these experts in Albania; these experts are among us and they can make the verification”.

Top Channel