Head of the Democratic Party parliamentary group, Gazment Bardhi, has sharply reacted to statements by the Director of the Prison Police regarding the luxurious conditions and equipment found in the cells of some organized crime figures in Albanian prisons. Bardhi describes the justifications of the head of the Prison Police as scandalous, irresponsible and anti-state, accusing him of trying to downplay the violations and avoid institutional responsibility. According to Bardhi, the arguments that personalization of spaces is allowed in prisons, or that the items found were excessive but not prohibited, cannot be used to justify the luxury created in the cells of persons linked to organized crime.
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This is a scandalous, irresponsible and deeply anti-state statement! Instead of accounting for who allowed it and how it became possible for the cells of Albanian prisons to be turned into five-star luxury hotels, for dangerous organized crime figures, the Director of the Prison Police chooses to justify this situation with absurd arguments, such as: “even the world allows personalization” or that they were “excessive items, but not prohibited.”
This reasoning is not merely unacceptable. It constitutes an open attempt to downplay the violation of the law and to avoid institutional responsibility.
Albanian legislation and the General Prison Regulation clearly and exhaustively define the items that are allowed to be kept in prison cells, as well as the conditions under which they must be administered. No legal provision can be interpreted as permission for unlimited luxury, for unjustified installations, or for private investments that undermine the regime and security of penitentiary institutions.
To justify the unjustifiable luxury of organized crime figures inside Albanian prisons means accepting the violation of the law as normal and betraying the very mission of the institutions that must enforce it. In a state that functions on accountability and the rule of law, after such a statement, the Director of the Prison Police should not have returned to his office as if nothing had happened. A responsible Minister of Justice would immediately demand accountability and take concrete measures, up to and including his dismissal.
Prisons are not luxury hotels. Cells are not private property. And organized crime cannot have privileges that ordinary citizens cannot even imagine. The duty of security structures in prisons is to guarantee the enforcement of the law, discipline and security, not to ensure the comfort of organized crime!