Albania President Rejects Parliamentary Probe

In a statement for the media on Wednesday, Topi’s main legal advisor, Spiro Peci, announced that the commission's request to question the president was unconstitutional.

“The president of the republic has the right to be informed and not the duty to inform [other institutions,]” said Peci, while pointing to a series of legal problems with the commission’s request.

He added that the commission's request for phone records was also unconstitutional and in breach of human rights conventions that guarantee privacy.

“The parliamentary commission does not have the [legal] right to request and examine phone records,” he said.

The protest of January 21 turned into a riot when several hundred marchers attacked the police barricade set up to protect the prime minister’s office, using sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails.

Police responded with tear gas, water cannon and later with live ammunition fire, leaving three dead and dozens wounded.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the members of the parliamentary commission set up by the ruling majority have declared the January 21 unrest a coup d’état, claiming that it was organised by the president, the opposition, the general prosecutor, the secret service and the media.   

Berisha has accused the president and general prosecutor Ina Rama of being directly involved in a plan to “eliminate” him.  

“A group of [prosecutors] had been organised so that if the prime minister was not eliminated during the coup, he would be arrested,” Berisha declared before the commission on Monday.