The public declarations of the US Ambassador to Tirana, Donald Lu, had one keyword: justice.
His messages have been very direct and in the Albanian language, since from January 13th, 2015, when he first landed in Albania.
“Reinforcing democratic institutions means continuing our cooperation in the judiciary reform”, Lu said.
Lu spoke at first about decriminalization, appealing to stop people with a criminal past from running in the elections, a mission that was not fully achieved.
However, his main plan was the judiciary reform, in a time when declarations against the corrupted judiciary were very strong: “If you see a judge with a watch more expensive than my car, chances are that you are seeing a corrupted judge”, the US ambassador declared.
Later, when it was announced that the National Bureau of Investigation would be created based on the US model of FBI, the US Ambassador compared the behaviour of the Albanian criminal Emiljano Shullazi to that of Al Capone, who controlled many public administration officials at the police and courts.
On December 14th, 2016, the US made another strong declaration, saying that there are 20 criminal families that dominate the underground markets in Albania, among them including Emiljano Shullazi, Lulzim Berisha and Klement Balili.
Only one month later the Police started the “Force of Law” operation, which coincides with the publication of the Tahiri Case, and the key keyword of diplomats and politicians was that of catching “big fish”.
The Ambassador had an open conflict with Prosecutor General Adriatic Llalla, accusing him of trying to block the judiciary reform.
“For more than 18 months, he has spoken constantly against the judiciary reform”.
Llalla, on the other hand, accused the Ambassador of influencing the investigations against Bankers, but the Ambassador never mentioned this episode.
When Llalla’s term was over, the US Ambassador reacted quickly and by interfering, in some way, with the process for appointing the new Prosecutor.
“Both political sides must end the era when the Prosecutor General defends corrupted politicians”, he said.
With his recent visit to the Prosecution General, the US Ambassador seems to be trying to stop political attempts to stop some of the hottest cases that Prosecutors are dealing with today, such as the Tahiri case, the privatization of the Energy Distribution Company to CEZ, and others.
This is not the first time that a US ambassador invests in the Prosecutor General. The same thing was with Ina Rama and even Adriatik Llalla. The question now is whether Arta Marku will be able to keep the pace of the US Ambassador, Donald Lu, although she is a provisory Prosecutor.
Top Channel
