Tirana police said on Monday (December 13) that the former Albanian chief prosecutor had fled the country after being sentenced to prison for corruption and had been arrested in Italy.
Adriatik Llalla (Adriatik Llalla) was arrested under an international arrest warrant and will await an extradition hearing, the police statement said.
The wanted former Attorney General Adriatik Llalla (Adriatik Llalla) was arrested in Italy on December 10. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Albania on December 10, but this has been confirmed.https://t.co/AhApF7XSZe
-Balkan Insight (@BalkanInsight) December 13, 2021
Lara was once one of the most powerful people in Albania. He was sentenced to two years in prison by a local court in May, but skipped the country shortly before his sentence took effect last month.
The verdict revealed that he provided false information about illegal assets.
These include an apartment and more than two hectares of land in the coastal city of Durres, with a total value of more than one million euros.
The court ruled that Lala, 52, “cannot explain” where he obtained funds to purchase real estate and financed his travel to the United States and Germany.
He was also barred from holding public office for the next five years.
The US State Department stated at the time that in 2018, Lala and his family were barred from entering the United States for “participating in severe corruption”.
Lara is the highest-ranking public official sentenced by the Special Court of Corruption and Organized Crime, which was established in 2019 as part of Albania’s hard work to clean up its corrupt judicial institution.
Through judicial reforms supported by the European Union, all members of the Albanian judiciary will undergo a review process. About 800 judges and prosecutors were required to declare assets and receive professional and reputation assessments in an effort to eradicate corruption.
So far, about five years after the review began, only half of the 800 eligible people have passed the review, and half of them have been fired or withdrawn. The reform also caused most of the seats in the High Court and the Constitutional Court to be vacated, bringing the two to a standstill for nearly two years. Although both now have a quorum, the backlog of cases has reached tens of thousands.
Lara claimed that the charges against him were politically motivated, and some media reported that he had sought political asylum in Italy.
Fighting corruption is a key condition for Albania to apply for the EU.
