Ermal Yzeiraj, the defense lawyer of the former Minister of Health Ilir Beqaj, has reacted after the search that SPAK agents conducted in an apartment in the area of Lungomare in Vlora.
According to him, SPAK has exercised control in an apartment not owned by Beqaj, but in which the former minister lived by signing a lease contract.
"Today, on 24.07.2024, around 2:00 p.m., I, as the lawyer of Mr. Ilir Beqaj, I was contacted on the phone by the relevant SPAK officers, who asked me to be present at the inspection that would be done (according to them) of the house owned by Mr. Ilir Beqaj in Vlorë, also asking me to bring the key to this house from Tirana, as otherwise they would break down the door. After I explained to the relevant SPAK officer that Mr. Ilir Beqaj does not own any apartment in Vlora, he apologized for having expressed himself wrongly and explained that it is about an apartment that Mr. Beqaj does not own it, but has rented it according to a lease contract of 2020."
Yzeiraj further claims that the lease contract for this apartment ended in 2020, so he, as a defense party, had no reason to go to Vlora, after he was called by SPAK agents to hand over the key to this property.
"My answer was that if it is about the house that Mr. Beqaj had a lease and that he declared in ILDKPKI, this lease contract of 2020 is no longer in force and Mr. Ilir Beqaj hasn't been using this house for rent for a long time, so I, as a lawyer, had no reason to leave Tirana for Vlora to participate in the control of a flat that was owned and used by someone else and even a such request was completely illegal. Mr. Ilir Beqaj is neither the tenant nor the owner of this apartment. It doesn't even make logical sense that Mr. Let him be a user of this apartment when everyone knows that Mr. Ilir Beqaj is already in the detention facilities."
In the following, he states that " such a check is just a desperate attempt to find a reason that Mr. Ilir Beqaj should be kept in prison and it shows that the reasons so far have not been as convincing as they were claimed to be".
Beqaj's lawyer also underlines that all actions taken so far to keep Beqaj under security measure "arrest in prison" are contrary to the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.