Albania Opposition Chief Probed Over Permits

The head of Albania's main opposition party faces a probe concerning 17 building permits issued by the municipality of Tirana when Basha was mayor from 2011 until 2015.

A source in the general prosecutor's office told BIRN that the probe into Basha follows charges filed by the National Agency for Planning, AKPT, over a number of building permits.

"We are verifying if there were any criminal offences, and, if there were, whose responsibility lies behind them," the source said.  

Although the permits were signed off by Basha as mayor, at this preliminary phase no one has been yet named as a suspect.

Basha did not run for re-election as mayor in the June 2015 local election, opting to focus on his job as chairman of the centre-right Democratic Party.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Basha said that the charges filed by AKPT against the municipality were politically motivated.

"It's a desperate political maneuver to distract attention from the acute problems that the country faces," he said.

"There is no probe from the prosecutor's office that started yesterday, but charges filed by [Prime Minister] Edi Rama towards me more than a year ago," he added. Under his leadership, the municipality of Tirana had kept to the law, he continued.

Basha's successor at the helm of the Tirana municipality, the former minister of welfare Erion Veliaj, on Wednesday he had received a request from the prosecutor's office for information and documents on the building permits.

"I don't feel good that the municipality of Tirana is under investigation," Veliaj said. "However, we will set a new standard of transparency that will serve for years to come," he added.      

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