Tomorrow, the Appeal Court will hold a hearing for Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj, appealing his prison sentence. From his cell, in another reaction, he says that he will return tomorrow to defend himself.
"Hello friends, After a month of isolation, tomorrow I will return to defend myself, my family, but also every Albanian, who believes that: Anonymous letters are the ugliest part of the regime we left behind and have no place in modern Albania. The declaration of "conviction" without trial from the start, happened in the darkest days of communist hell, but not in a European democracy.
The investigation of personal biography or illegal vetting, like mine for 20 years, only happened in the time of Sali Enver, but not today in the 21st century. The request for repentance still without accusation, resembles the hysterical popular trials in the '60s, but not in 2025. The persecution of the family by a notary from the father, with 5-a, without merit and without law, builder in conflict of interest, cannot be the standard of Justice Reform.
Leaving the capital without direction by the people's vote with a drop of a pencil is, if not a coup d'état, a coup against the city, its affairs and the voters of Tirana. The state with "Uacap" on holidays, by zealous militants of Saliu, today investigators of Olsi, is an insult to the reform in which we all believed. Treating entrepreneurs as "kulaks" and wiretapping business people without facts, belongs to post-war Albania, not to democracy. Pressure on witnesses, reminding them of prison, parents and children, belongs to the executioners of a regime, not to democracy.
The presumption of innocence is an obligation for European standards, and not the collective hysteria of the counters, portals and opponents who we defeated 7 times in Tirana by vote, and who can only be removed from the campaign by force. I will say more tomorrow at the session! I hope you are well! Whoever is fasting, may it be as easy as possible, and whoever has thought of me and kept me in prayer, may God bless you", writes Veliaj.