Albania Ex-Deputy Interior Minister Under Arrest on Bribery Charges

Albania's Special Prosecution against Corruption and Organised Crime, SPAK, on Tuesday said that a former Deputy Interior Minister from the ruling Socialist Party, Rovena Voda, was under house arrest for suspected bribery.

It said it had established reasonable suspicion that the former deputy minister had accepted money and other materials from two citizens, Majlinda Hasani and Florida Beu, to give the latter a job in the civil service.

"Unfair monetary and material benefits in this case were given and accepted in order for citizen Rovena Voda to illegally exert influence on other persons exercising public functions, to unfairly favour the citizen Florida Beu so that the latter would be appointed a civil servant in the executive category," the announcement said.

SPAK registered criminal charges against Voda for the offence of "Exercising illegal influence on persons exercising public functions". Hasani and Beu are also under house arrest also for the same offence. Investigations into the case are still ongoing according to the SPAK.

Voda left her position on July 29, 2020 as Deputy Minister of Interior having held the position since May 22, 2017. During this term, she was also head of the Central Task Force against cannabis cultivation and trafficking.

From September 2014 to March 2017 she was Cabinet Director in the Ministry of Parliamentary Relations and was then appointed to the same position in the Ministry of Interior in March 2017.

Last Saturday, SPAK arrested nine officials and former Interior Ministry staffers related to another case about public procurements. They are accused of "Violation of the equality of participants in public tenders or auctions". They are accused of favouring the company that won a tender...