March 7, 2012
596 Lexime
A few days before the fourth anniversary of the Gerdec tragedy, judges Ridvan Hado, Shefkie Demiraj and Fatmira Hajdari were unable to give their verdict on time. The leading judge of the panel, Ridvan Hado, presented the complexity of the case and the absolute inability to take a verdict as the main cause of the delay, leaving one other week to the Panel for coming with a decision. This means that on March 12th, three days before the fourth anniversary of the Gerdeci tragedy, the Court of First Degree will express its decision. (read the full photo-reportage of the Gerdec Tragedy; by Vedat Xhymshiti click..)
Tirane, ALBANIA – NewsweeK
Unofficial sources say that the court has been unable to take a decision before March 6th, because the file is very voluminous, having 29 defendants, and the Albademil business subject among them. Different to the other times, the courtroom was filled with defendants, lawyers, relatives of the victims and the media.
In the courtroom there was also a representative of the US Embassy, the presence of whom was noted especially in another case, that of January 21st, when the National Guard Commander was being trialed. The Prosecution demanded three lifetime incarcerations, a total of 127 years to prison and 80 million ALL for all defendants, and only one of them to be found innocent.
The gravest accusation for this process was that of murder in qualified circumstances against one or more people, property destruction with explosive and power abuse. The strongest point of the defensive lawyers was the charges for murder against four defendants, claiming that the charges are not argued as the conditions of the penal code. The court on this argument expects a surprise stance; if they will accept the charge of reject it.
