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'Every personal dimension of mine was investigated', Veliaj in court: There is one side that wants darkness and one side that wants light!

2026-05-08 14:52:21Politikë SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
'Every personal dimension of mine was investigated', Veliaj in court:
Erion Veliaj

The administrative hearing for Erion Veliaj was decided to be held behind closed doors. After the live broadcast was interrupted, the hearing has now continued behind closed doors.

Veliaj said that for more than two years he has faced what he described as a "frontal political, media and legal attack", which has led to the removal of personal freedom and the inability to exercise his mandate as mayor of Tirana.

"Honorable judge, I thank you for your words, but this comes after a concern, with the interim decision, I expected there to be transparency, this process has flourished in the dark. The KLP should have protected journalists and protected itself. The KLP has responded to who has been appointed before us, we should all demand transparency, there is a side that wants darkness and a side that wants light", said Erion Veliaj.


Excerpt from Veliaj's statement;

For more than two years, immediately after my election for the third time as Mayor of Tirana, I have been faced with a frontal, disproportionate and unstoppable political, media and legal attack; a clash that, in its conclusion, amounted to the removal of my personal freedom and the inability to exercise the mandate entrusted to me by 160 thousand citizens of Tirana.


Even after formally winning my mandate on the Constitutional Court, after another attempt to abolish it, I continue to be held tenaciously in detention and isolation, while the very legality of the source of that criminal power is today before this court for review.

Every aspect of my life has been scrutinized. Every personal and family dimension of mine has been investigated.

On me and my family, a complete form of “vetting” has been exercised, essentially, not administrative but criminal, 2 outside any normal standard of proportionality. And yet, throughout this time, I have cooperated with justice at every moment. I have contributed to facilitating its work. I have had no hesitation, no shyness and no hesitation in facing the process and the truth, neither yesterday nor today. And this is precisely where the true paradox of this issue begins. Because for more than two years, every possible political, media and legal mechanism was used to bring me to justice, in the most denigrating way possible, for a man who still holds the trust of an entire city for his leadership.

Investigations, wiretaps, checks, public exposure and every other form of exercising criminal power were used, with the argument that I had to face justice. Today, as I stand before justice, with full will to face it, the paradox is that the same mechanism no longer seems to want a real confrontation with justice, but a limited, controlled, quick and procedurally truncated confrontation.

Because it's not just a restriction on my physical freedom that's required. It's also a restriction on my ability to effectively defend myself and face challenges with dignity.

I am not allowed to have full and real access to the file. I am not allowed to listen to all the wiretaps carried out against me. I am not allowed to communicate with my international lawyers. I am not allowed to inform the Albanian and international public opinion on the real nature of this 3 issue. Of course, I am not allowed to exercise the mandate that the citizens of Tirana have entrusted to me.

So, while every restriction that can be imposed on a citizen is being imposed on me, at the same time everything is being done to prevent me from effectively exercising those rights that the Constitution of the Republic of Albania itself guarantees me. And every time I try to exercise one of these rights, new procedural obstacles are created, which not only make their exercise increasingly difficult, but are then used against me, to justify further infringements of my personal freedom.

This very trial, where we are today, is another proof of this absurd paradox. Because even today, the opposing party, in essence, does not ask the court to examine my claim on the merits. It asks that the court not enter into the merits of the case at all. It asks that you, Mr. Judge, not examine the legality of the power that was exercised over me and over the institution that I represent. And this is what makes this issue much more serious than a procedural debate.

Because at the core of the claim presented before you lies the idea that I had no right to ask the court to review the legality of the authority that took away my personal freedom; of the authority that put me under surveillance; of the authority that controlled my private life and that of my family members; of the authority that entered every dimension of my personal and institutional life.

So, the government can enter every corner of a citizen's life, but the citizen does not have the right to ask: "By what legitimacy is this power being exercised over me?". So, the government can intervene in the mandate of a mayor even in violation of the limits set by the law itself, but the elected mayor does not have the right to ask: "By what legitimacy is this power being exercised over the municipality and over this city"?


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