Albania Watchdog Accuses Top Judge of Corruption

An anticorruption watchdog has referred the Chief Judge of the Appellate Court of Tirana to prosecutors for investigation, claiming he has accumulated assets of 1.7 million euros in a suspicious manner.

Gjergj Erebara

BIRN

Tirana

	Alaudin Malaj. Photo: LSA

The High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflict of Interests, HIDAA, on Monday said it had referred Judge Alaudin Malaj to prosecutors, claiming he had accumulated 1.7 million euro in assets in a suspicious way and had set up a network of construction companies to launder the proceeds.
The Inspectorate, created in 2003 to monitor the wealth of high officials, on Monday said suspicions had arisen due to the large number of transactions conducted by Malaj family members.
“In its first declaration of 2003, the subject (Malaj) had total assets of just 60,000 euros but at the end of 2014, his wealth totalled 1.7 million euros,” HIDAA said.
Contacted by BIRN, Malaj refused to comment on the allegations.
HIDAA's audit of assets, reviewed by BIRN as part of an investigation into the wealth of judges, showed that his family wealth increased sharply after 2010, when his wife left her job at the national postal service to work as a manager in two construction companies, Rigers Construction sh.p.k and Algan shpk.
At the same time, the Malaj family increased its wealth by declaring a 100,000 euro apartment in Tirana and another worth 35,000 euros on the seaside. Malaj's wife obtained two more apartments as gifts in 2012.
The justice system in Albania is perceived as highly corrupt. A previous investigation by BIRN showed that no corruption cases filed with the prosecutor’s office over the past decade concerning the judiciary ended in a conviction.
The review by BIRN of the assets declarations of the 25 judges of the Appellate Court of Tirana showed that over the past 10 years, these judges had collectively carried out real estate transactions worth more than 5 million euro. (Click here to read our previous investigation).
The assets declarations reviewed by BIRN also show that their net wealth grew exponentially from year to year.
BIRN discovered that over the eight years, the 25 judges spent over 840,000 euro on cars alone. Only four of the 25 judges from the court do not own cars, despite having an annual salary of just 1.58 million lek (€11,200).
Albania's parliament is currently working to reform justice system as part of the obligations for the EU integration process.
However, the process is slow due to disagreements between political parties, while the opposition says that behind the reform plan, the ruling coalition is trying to take control of the justice system.