Prime Minister Edi Rama emphasized during his speech at the meeting of the Socialist Party Parliamentary Group that the arrest of Belinda Balluku is being sought before she is even tried, just like those who demanded the execution of her grandfather Beqir Balluku.
It's just that Rama knows very well that those who put Balluk's grandfather on trial are precisely the predecessors of the party that he himself leads today with a strong hand.
According to Rama, the presumption of innocence should be an absolute prerequisite of every investigation and process and a clear dividing line between democracy and dictatorship, between justice and arbitrariness.
"They want Balluk in prison even before the court door opens to start the process. I tell them to ask themselves a question: where do we change? Where should we, today's Albanians, change regardless of political or human beliefs, from those who necessarily wanted her grandfather shot. After they first tried them in the newspaper, radio and TV and sentenced them in the name of the people without giving them the right to defend themselves in the eyes of the people," said Rama.
He further said that in order to vote for Balluk's arrest, MPs must have at least one of the reasons they had when they previously voted to lift an MP's immunity.
"In order to raise our hands to vote on the arrest request for Balluk, with the card that the socialists and our supporters have given us, including those from the socialist capital in Fier, we need to have at least one of the reasons we had when we did this before," Rama said.
He recalled that since the justice reform, the Parliament has voted for two arrests of MPs: one for repeated violation of a court decision and another for corruption, money laundering and concealment of assets, implying that only Arben Ahmetaj has been the "black sheep" of the SP, while the party has lined up to defend the others.
