Tirana Administrative Court

Aqif Rakipi, a powerful politician in the Elbasan region from the Justice, Unity and Integration Party, PDIU, in central Albania, lost his mandate as a member of Albania's parliament on Friday, after prosecutors confirmed his role in a crime involving stolen goods in Italy in 1998.

An Administrative Court in Tirana has ordered Albania's main intelligence agency, SHISH, to de-classify reports of the former Communist-era Sigurimi secret police and its data on the number of people kept under surveillance during the last decade of the Communist regime.