The Special Tribunal of Appeals has released an official interpretation of their verdict against Fatmir Mediu, in which they give a detailed account of the reasons why SPAK’s request to retry the former minister was ultimately approved.
GJKKO’s appeal argued that the former minister had never actually been tried before regarding the Gerdec explosion.
Meanwhile, the final verdict underlined that all prescribed deadlines had been respected because Mediu has been a defendant since 2009. In addition, the court emphasized that the fact that immunity is no longer considered a pre-existing condition in the case paves the way for a retrial.
Mediu was one of the defendants accused of abusing his office during the tragic event back in 2008, at the ex-military ammunition depot in Gerdec, located a few kilometers away from Tirana, which took the lives of 26 people.
Mediu’s case was closed a year later, on September 14, 2009, when he was re-elected MP. Back then, his defense attorneys asked to have the case closed by arguing that the prosecution should have made an additional request to Parliament to get the authorization that would have lifted their client’s immunity.
However, the case was reopened by Zamira Durdaj, who lost her son in Gerdec and filed charges against Mediu at the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK).
Initially, the First Instance Court overturned SPAK’s request to retry Mediu with the argument that too much time had passed and that no new evidence had been presented, but things took a turn this year.
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