Open letter to the United Kingdom Ambassador in Tirana, Sir Alastair King-Smith

Your Excellency!

The United Kingdom Embassy in Tirana that you represent, issued a public reaction following my declaration on the designation from the authorities of your country. In the absence of facts, instead of a public excuse, this reaction defends the indecent defamations of the Home Secretary letter in which I am accussed of corruption, namely the abuse of public office with the purpose of personal gains for myself and my inner circle. Because such trespassing does not exist, you weren’t able to put forward any evidence and facts, and you won’t be able in the future.

The sole ‘corruption’ mentionned in this letter relates to Damir Fazllic, a UK citizen and my former electoral advisor part of the BGR team during the 2005 elections, whom, according to your letter, I have enriched and protected when incriminating evidences against him surfaced.

As a matter of fact, 14 years ago, the office of the Albanian Prosecutor investigated, over a long period of time, the aforementioned investor, concluding that it was not able to prove any of the wrongdoings for which he was accused.

Allow me to underline also the fact that all the file related to the transfer of Fazllic’s private capital is a direct investment, while having no links to public tenders or contracts.

In addittion, during the last 9 years since my departure from office, if any wrongdoings existed, the Prosecution had all the means to re-investigate the matter, but this never happenned due to the simple reason that the first investigation, although thouroughly exhaustive, failed to identify any unlawful action.

Therefore, I would like to ask you if there is any sentence against Mr. Fazllic in your country, and if no, how can the exemplary British jurisprudence and public administration, transfer a fictious burden of guilt from a subject of Her Majesty, on another subject in a sovereign jurisdiction in Albania?

If Fazlic is free from the burden of guilt in your country, how can the guilt of cooperation with him can be used in another legal and institutional domain?

Absurd, to say the least.

If your excellency has incriminating facts in relation to your subject, the law abids you to share these evidences with the Albanian and British justice bodies, and not to concede public defamations without any argument.

Using the name of a British citizen, who has never been sentenced in my country nor, to my knowledge, in your country, appears to be prejudicial and absurd, considering also that he has never received any public money from the government I chaired and lastly, that has made important investments in Albania even after my departure from office.

As such, I point out that using a British citizen name who has never been sentenced in my country and in my knowledge nor in your country, to accuse me for

corruption, represents a humiliation for every Albanian and British citizen, for every European, American and for every citizen of the world who believes in the presumtion of innocence. A sacred principle since Magna Carta and in all following international human rights conventions, but that you deny to a citizen of your country for the sole purpose of defaming another one.

This represents a severe scandal clearly pinpointing to a corruptive act whose final goal is to extend the ruling of the most corrupted and incriminated government in Europe.

I want to reassure you and the Government of Her Majesty for which I have the greatest esteem, that I won’t stop fighting with all my modest means, in convincing Albanians that corruption, organised crime and vote-buying are the enemies of freedom, democracy, human dignity and of their future.

Your Excellency, I am not elaborating on your political accusation on my links with crime even though you don’t present any fact, because on this, your silence on the dark records of this narco-government emptying Albania faster than war, speaks further and deeper. I want to inform you nevertheless that you are the first official ever who makes such statement and that even my political adversaries, whose links with organised crime I have denounced and will continue to do so everyday, have never issued such an accusation.

I end this letter by addressing my request and urge your Excellency, Ambassador King Smith, and the United Kingdom government, to share with the Albanian or British justice bodies, any evidence, fact or document that you posses or may receive from anyone in the world.

With consideration

Sali Berisha

Chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania

MP, Former President & Prime Minister