In the criminal proceedings conducted at the Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime in charge of former Director of the Albanian Road Authority, Sonila Qato and her subordinates, three experts stated that the tunnels of Arbrit road were unfinished when they were coauded as such in 2019.
The court-appointed experts submitted their findings on September 17 based on the questions of the defendants and their legal representatives.
Former ARRSH director Sonila Qato and several of her former subordinates are accused of favouring a shadowy society in the 19 million euro tender of the Skrfica tunnel on the Kardhiq-Delvina road in 2019. Qato denies the allegations.
The new expertise was carried out after it was deemed invalid and unusable an act committed by experts appointed by the former Prosecution for Serious Crimes in 2019, after the defendants claimed that the experts assigned by the prosecution body were unlicensed and that one of them was convicted of forgery. The claim to sign the act by an expert convicted of forgery was also found by the court at previous hearings.
According to experts, the T4, T5 and T6 tunnels in Arber Street were unfinished when the act of co-ordination was carried out. According to them, although the works were considered by the completed colaudator, they were not. Asked about the reports carried out by the ARRSH working group, experts said that the situation described is presented the same, without fundamental difference.
In view of the questions of defendants' defenders submitted tuesday in court, experts noted that the act of co-trial can be carried out even when not all the works of an object have been completed, but describing those that are yet to be realized. According to the experts, unlike what is defined in the act of the collection, when there are still unfinished works, it cannot be said that the guarantee phase has begun.
The prosecutor of the case, Elvis Gokaj, asked for time to get acquainted with the act of experts and to prepare questions for the experts. He said he would present the next hearing.
The court decided to postpone the hearing on October 1, 11:00.
According to SPAK, ARRSH initiated an administrative investigation for the implementation of the concessionary contract of arbri road, producing false data to argue disqualification of the company "Gjoka" from the tender. The prosecution accuses members of the working group of "Falsifying documents" on the grounds that they have prepared on the same day two reports that differ in content.
It is also alleged that the content of these reports resulted in contradiction with the documentation submitted by the union of operators "Gjoka Konstruksion", and were assessed by the prosecution office completely different from the data obtained from the review minutes conducted by the Judicial Police or the act of experts appointed by the former Serious Crimes Prosecution – an expert act that was deemed invalid. /Reporter.al