Prime Minister Rama spoke, among other things, at the Socialist Party Assembly about Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj and former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku. Regarding Erion Veliaj, he said he had been against his arrest while he was mayor and that he should have continued his duty and been investigated while at liberty. But justice should not interfere, even though we do not agree with what it is doing to him by keeping him in prison. The prime minister further stressed that it is being said he is defending Belinda Balluku. But there is nothing true about it. She, like anyone else, must defend herself, and the Socialist Party has no lawyers to do so, Rama stressed.
“A storm arose as if I were defending Balluku from justice. I have heard it repeated and turned into an artificially created truth. But what is my truth that I have shared with you? It is the same and always: our relationship with justice is and remains a relationship of separated powers, and anyone who has a problem with justice has their own personal one! With their own lawyers, I and the Socialist Party do not act as anyone’s lawyer! Find one word, mine or anyone’s here, that did this in Belinda Balluku’s case and tell me. You cannot find it, for either him or her,” Rama declared.
The head of government then turned to the case of Erion Veliaj, repeating his position that the pre-trial detention of the elected mayor of Tirana is absurd and constitutes a matter of democracy. However, he stressed that he would not comment on the merits of the case or on his legal responsibility.
“You will find my words about the pre-trial detention of the mayor of Tirana. It is an absurd detention and remains a matter of democracy. I have said it and I repeat it. You cannot take the elected mayor away from the capital and lock him up inside without trial, but you cannot say that he cannot be replaced because he is in office. Either one or the other. Both together are nonsense. But I will never say anything about the merits of the case,” Rama said.