The Fier incinerator file is not the first that the Albanian judiciary investigates on the charge of corruption and it certainly won't be the last. However, this file is the exemplary case when the SPAK special prosecutor's office sets an unheard-of precedent that has not been seen until now, even for the dimensions of the wonders of the Albanian justice system.
The established precedent is related to the claim, where more years of prison are required for the businessman who benefited from the concession, than for the official who granted this concession.
Can it happen that a businessman who has nothing in his hand but the ambition to expand his activity and profits, even using illegal methods, is accused and asked to be punished more than the official who signed and sealed the concession?
Finding similar cases in democratic government systems is impossible. Not in Albania, and all this is thanks to SPAK, which in the claim for the Fier incinerator demands 12 years in prison for Klodian Zoto, who turns out to be the owner of the Fier incinerator.
The request is four times more than the claim given to the members of the bid evaluation commission who granted the concession and higher than all other officials accused in this case, including Lefter Koka, for whom SPAK has requested 10 years in prison.
These are the wonders of SPAK, which are not the first in this file. Earlier, the special prosecutors requested the classification of Arben Dervishaj as a state official, at a time when he has not held any such post, but in the case of the Fier incinerator, he was contracted by the private concession company.
SPAK's illogic with this classification was corrected by the special court, which reclassified the charge against Arben Dervishaj, not as a state official. It now remains in the hands of the court whether it will take as a basis the logic of the special prosecution with the given claims, or intervene here to correct the anomaly of hitting the tax-paying business rather than the officials who are tax-consumers.