16 11 2007 Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said on Thursday that he believed the outgoing Minister of Justice, Ilir Rusmali, was innocent of the corruption charges levelled against him.
“I accepted the resignation of Rusmali with the deep conviction that he has no connection whatsoever - apart from the blood relationship - to his brother’s efforts to profit from tenders,” Berisha said at a news conference where he named Rusmali’s successor.
Rusmali resigned on Wednesday after being accused by the Director-General of Prisons, Saimir Shehri, of putting unlawful pressure on a company connected with the ministry’s €1.8 million tender to build a new detention facility in the city of Durres.
Shehri, who also stepped down, has presented a tape recording in which Rusmali’s brother, Edmond, allegedly pressures a high-ranking prison official to award him the tender.
The outgoing minister has denied the accusations against him, while asserting that Shehri had been seeking to entrap him.
Berisha named Enkeled Alibej, the head of the anti-corruption department in the prime minister’s office, as his nominee for the post of justice minister.
Alibej is a member of the Democratic Party’s reform-minded Committee for the Orientation of Politics, a body created ahead of the 2005 parliamentary elections that has since supplied a number of ministers to the government. (BIRN)
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