Two prosecutors assigned to the controversial trial of Himare-elect Fredi Beleri this week reportedly recommended a guilty verdict on a charge of active corruption, while proposing a sentence of two years and six months.
The ethnic Greek politician, who won the municipal race in Himare, in southern coastal Albania, last May by the slimmest of margins, has been remanded since before his election day victory on charges of vote-buying, based on the testimony of two otherwise shady witnesses.
Repeated motions for bail to take the oath of office have been rejected by a special anti-corruption court in Tirana.
Beleri, his supporters, much of the ethnic Greek community in southern Albania and official Greece have furiously accused the court and prosecutors of political motivation behind the snail’s pace judicial case against the former. Beleri, in fact, has directly blamed Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama as behind the accusations, his incarceration and the slow-moving trial.
The same duo of prosecutors recommended a one-year suspended term for Beleri’s co-defendant, Pantelis Kokavesis.
In addressing the court’s three justices, Beleri again emphasized that “…I have a grievance over how the prosecution operates. The latter consistently does not accept evidence I provide; they avoid questioning the people we have named as witnesses, and in my case, evidence has been falsified. Anyone who falsifies documents of the Albanian state bears a criminal responsibility. Here in Albania, we do not have an impartial justice system, because the process is politically motivated and we see the prime minister interfering in this case, leaving the people of Himare without their mayor. This is a political prison, and you are preventing me from being sworn-in as mayor.”
