U.S. Embassy vows to not step back in face of any intimidation
The U.S. Embassy in Tirana vowed Friday to not step back in face of an attempt to intimidate them or undermine the reform process.
“The United States has made a commitment to the people of Albania that we will monitor every step of the implementation of judicial reform,” Ambassador Donald Lu said Friday in a statement.
“No attempts intimidate us or undermine the reform process will deter us from ensuring that it succeeds in preventing political manipulation and judicial corruption. You have our promise,” the Ambassador said.
The statement comes a day after the U.S Ambassador, Donald Lu and Albanian Prosecutor General, Adriatik Llalla traded accusations on judicial reform.
Speaking at a conference held in capital Tirana on Thursday, Lu said powerful people are trying to maintain their control over the courts and over the prosecutors. “The most recent example of this is the action of Albania’s Prosecutor General. For more than 18 months he has consistently and loudly spoken against the judicial reform,” the Ambassador said.
The U.S. Ambassador called on the civil society, international partners, and the media to be eagle-eyed in face of corrupt politicians, judges, prosecutors and criminal bosses who will try to steal this election, judicial reform and everything else in this economy.
Albanian General Prosecution office fired back at the U.S. Ambassador saying “We tell Ambassador Lu that he is the Lord of policy, but he can’t be the Lord at the institution of Prosecution.”
“He can not blackmail us revoking the visas, as he did with Prosecutor General’s visa,” Llalla’s spokeswoman Fjorida Ballauri said.
Later on Thursday, Adriatik Llalla told Bledi Fevziu at an interview aired at Klan television that the U.S. Ambassador was not the governor of Albania.
Llalla met with Albanian Presidnet Bujar Nishani on Thursday and with Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta on Friday./tvklan.al