Author: Klevis Paloka
The murder of the deputy commissioner of the Lezha Police, Saimir Hoxha, a few meters from the place where they destroyed a parcel of drugs with 62 cannabis sativa roots raised once again the issue of the cultivation of the narcotic plant in our country.
Said by many officials, including former interior ministers and police directors, that the war against cannabis has been won, the crime against police uniforms on Lezhë Island, in fact, showed the opposite of what has been repeated for 8 years.
"On behalf of the government and in my role as Minister of the Interior, I assure you of our full and unconditional commitment to resolutely continue the fight against crime and drug trafficking”, said Interior Minister Bledi Çuçi during the speech farewell to deputy commissioner Hoxha.
Based on this event, but also on previous events, ACQJ decided to monitor the operations carried out by the State Police during the first 9 months of 2021 on the one hand and what is implied by them. That drugs are not planted only in the deep and mountainous areas identified as hotspots for years, but now also in the villages of the capital. The investigative files show that in the vast majority of cases, as well as in the recent case of Lezha, cannabis is planted on state lands, escaping in many cases from criminal liability the growers and traffickers, to whom the investigations find their lack of identification. Happened in these circumstances, the police seems that in order not to leave the file white, they shook the handcuffs for the elders.
headmen
According to the State Police, only in the first 9 months of 2021, about 50 elders have been arrested, detained or criminally prosecuted throughout Albania on the grounds of "Abuse of duty" and "Criminal neglect".
But almost half or more of these arrests have been dismissed by the Courts, which have released these arrested persons, since according to them there was no abuse of duty. A monitoring of the "Fol" Center on drugs carried out in the district of Tirana, shows case after case that in 6 proceedings, the elders of the villages of Kryezi, Zall Bastar, Qafëmolle, Gurët e Zinj and Shëngjergj ended up under investigation and then in handcuffs. All of them were initially suspected of abuse of office, but during the monitoring it turned out that the court did not accept keeping them in the cell, while the prosecution took a lenient position for them, suspecting them only of not reporting a crime. One of the elders appears in communications with the residents and one of the cultivators prays: God wants it to rain!
I don't know anything about the plot
Arben Gordi is one of these elders who was criminally prosecuted after suspected cannabis sativa seedlings were found cultivated in his village.
Gordi spoke to the police and then to the prosecutors, insisting that he is like all the other residents and that he knows nothing about what happens in the mountains.
"I was not aware of that parcel, since in addition to my job as a chief, I also have my own job that I have to support my family, since with the salary of 6 lek that I receive as a chief, it is not possible for me to control the entire area every day. It is impossible for me to check everything, I can't check all the plots or mountains every day, I don't have the conditions for me to monitor even if I go to a mountain or a hilly area I can't tell with the naked eye that from afar", says the 51-year-old who has been taking this position as the headman of the village "Gurët e Zinj" in Vorë for more than a year and a half.
Elder Gordi says that his main task is the problems of his fellow villagers in order to have harmony and resolve conflicts.
"I think that it is not our duty and we should not be the only ones who deal with controlling or monitoring the area for cannabis cultivation. The police should deal with this as I have other work to do, I also have to solve the problems of the residents of my area", the father of three children concludes for "SIGNALIZO!".
In fact, even in the law on "Local Self-Government" amended in 2015, it is not specified that the village head should monitor the cultivation of cannabis.
The law says:Based on the mayor's decision, the mayor can perform the following tasks:
a) care for the prevention of illegal interventions in the drinking water supply network and white water and dirty water sewers, protective channels of residential areas, as well as the network of irrigation and drainage solution channels;
b) care for the prevention of illegal interventions and any kind of damage to roads, sidewalks and public squares in the village;
c) administration of village cemeteries;
ç) caring for the preservation of forests and pastures, as well as natural resources", it is stated in point 2 of article 71 in the law on local self-government.
Despite the concrete specifications, not only this year, but especially in the last three years, the police are using the criminal prosecution and arrest of elders as a method not only to penalize them, but also to secure them as "collaborators". The figures for police officers or even other structures that should be held accountable are few. The monitoring of the "FOL" center shows that for the villages of the capital where the elders were detained and then released, there was no police area specialist investigated for abuse of duty by inaction, thus allowing the planting of drugs not far from the metropolis .
Drug complaints service
But what is more interesting is the fact that in the statistics released by the Internal Affairs and Complaints Service in the annual report of 2020, it was emphasized that the complaint against police officers for favoritism in the cultivation of cannabis was only 1 out of 1403 complaints i did it
While only 19 operations were carried out to detect and attack the illegality of police officers.
"About 19 operations have been carried out by the investigation structures of the Service for the discovery, legal documentation and attack of illegality of police officers in the most disturbing forms and phenomena, such as "passive corruption", "abuse of duty", favoring "cultivation of plants narcotics" and "contraband", and other trends", it is said in the annual report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, while there are no statistics on how many police officers were arrested or criminally prosecuted during the past year.
While for the year 2021, from the monthly reports published by the Ministry of the Interior, there is no case of a police officer arrested for favoring the cultivation of cannabis. Another fact that stands out is the last published monthly report by the Ministry of Interior is the month of May, while the reports for the months of June, July and August are missing.
These statistics imply the fact that the State Police has based the entire war against cannabis on the reports of the village elders, who do not have this as their main task, while there are no statistics for the area inspectors who should deal with these issues. and that have been stopped because cultivated cannabis has been found in the areas where they have been placed to monitor, from air controls or from alerts that come from the operations carried out by the State Police.
