“We would give Festim €120 to take care about the part of the sea, switching off the radars”, this brief sentence is part of a transcript in the recordings that surfaced after a major drug bust involving several European countries, brought back to the spotlight accusations on the involvement of high-state officials in drug-trafficking clans.
“In two years after 2011, none of the 9 radars monitoring the Albanian sea was working. The radars were not working when I became defense minister”, said former minister Mimi Kodheli in 2015.
Two years later, minister Olta Xhaçka stressed that a group was tasked with the surveillance of maritime spaces.
“Together with minister Fatmir Xhafaj, we established a joint inspection group to inspect the current situation of maritime spaces surveillance system”, Xhaçka was quoted as saying.
The Democratic Party insisted that the radars of a NATO member state had been switched off to be at the service of narcotraffickers.
Accusations continued for several years, but the question of whether radars can be intentionally switched off remained unanswered.
In order to understand how maritime spaces are surveilled, Euronews Albania went to the Inter-Institutional Maritime Operational Center. Since we were not allowed to film inside of the operation room where all the surveillance takes place, we spoke to the administrative director, Zyber Dyshku who told us that “radars cannot be switched off”.
“I’ve heard it many times, it is a story that tends to get repeated and there have been many studies, investigations, and verifications, and it doesn’t result that we’ve had any intentional shutdown of the system. At the coast guard part, we only use the system, we don’t manage it, so there is no way to have any physical opportunity to intervene no chance, zero”, said Dyshku, adding that people believe that there is a button who just switches off the system but that is not true.
Referring to the content of a memo published in the media back in 2017 highlighting that radars were allegedly switched off 18 times, Dyshku said:
“Any system can suffer from a hitch, which is very short-lived because the defect is immediately repaired. It’s a very sensitive system and I am not aware of any cases involving a total shutdown. These systems have a duplicate energy source,” he added.
At the facility there are six representatives working 24/7, from the ministries of defense, interior, agriculture, infrastructure, finance and tourism.
The center compiles a daily report on its work and problems noticed, which are then sent to the Prime Minister’s Office as well as respective ministries.
Euronews Albania sent an e-mail to NATO’s office, who responded that each member country is responsible for the surveillance of its own maritime spaces.
