A claim that a senior official informed for the Communist-era Sigurimi secret police caused pro-government media to speculate that it was former president Ilir Meta, who has just returned to frontline politics as an opposition leader.
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Ilir Meta at a press conference in Tirana, June 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/Malton Dibra.
Controversy has continued to simmer in Albania as pro-government media have published a series of allegations about former president Ilir Meta, claiming that he could have been a Communist-era secret police collaborator.
The allegations were published after Meta’s term in office ended and he announced his return to frontline politics earlier this week with the Socialist Movement for Integration, now rebranded as the Freedom Party.
The claims were made after the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents said it received a request to verify information that a high-profile politician with the initials I.M. was named an informer in the files of the Sigurimi, the much-feared Communist-era secret police.
Media loyal to the government were quick to publish stories alleging that Meta was the informer.
Some media outlets claimed he had given information to the Sigurimi about a classmate who wanted to flee the country. But another media outlet claimed claimed to have interviewed the former classmate, who denied that the person who informed on his was Ilir Meta.
Meta also denied the claims on Wednesday and slammed the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents, calling it the “Manipulations Authority”.
The former president declared his return to frontline politics on Monday – a comeback that had been expected because he organised protests against Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government in 2020 and was very politically active during the general elections last year.
Speaker of parliament Lindita Nikolla, who was notified about the request to check on the politician, said that she was “shocked” and is ready to call for a special parliamentary session about the case.
But she did not give any further details about the unidentified individual accused of being a Sigurimi informer.
The Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents did not respond to BIRN’s request for further information by the time of publication.
Historian Kastriot Dervishi, an expert on the Communist period in Albania, told BIRN that he didn’t have information on this specific case, but knew about the type of file, which was known as a ‘dosje formulare’.
Dervishi said that “reports by collaborators were recorded” in these files and pseudonyms were used for the informers. However, the fact that someone’s initials were mentioned does not mean that they were necessarily working for the Sigurimi, he added.
“Maybe he gave a statement about case, but this does not show he was qualified as an associate of State Security,” he said.
Data previously obtained by BIRN shows that in the 1980s, there were about 14,000 people classified by State Security as employees and collaborators at various levels. These collaborators included people who spied on their relatives, often with devastating consequences.
The State Security archive has been kept locked since the fall of Albania’s repressive Communist regime in 1991.
It was declared secret for 25 years by a law that was passed in 1995. A subsequent law passed in 2015 effectively classifies the archive as secret indefinitely.
Unlike some other Eastern European countries, Albania has not carried out any lustration process, nor has it brought charges against Communist officials for crimes committed under the former regime.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
