Albania Jails Former General Prosecutor Llalla for Corruption

Adriatik Llalla, 52, a former General Prosecutor of Albania, was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison and his assets confiscated after being found guilty of not declaring his wealth and other irregularities on asset declarations. He becomes one of the highest officials in the country to be found guilty of such charges.

The Special Court Against Organised Crime and Corruption issued its verdict on Thursday. Llalla was present in court but didn't comment to journalists.

Llalla was elected General Prosecutor in 2012 and held this position until 2017 when his five-year mandate expired. On February 2017, as Albania was working on its flagship Justice Reform, the then US Ambassador in Tirana, Donald Lu, branded him as an "enemy of the reform".

Llalla retorted by claiming the ambassador was exerting "typical Sorosian pressure" on him, referring to the US millionaire philanthropist George Soros who is often a target of conspiracy theories.

The US State Department declared him "persona non grata" in 2018, the first known Albanian official to be banned from entering the US for suspected involvement in "significant corruption".

Prosecutors started investigating him in March 2018 and issued a seizure order for an apartment in the port city of Durres and 22,000 square metres of land near Tirana.

Under the Justice Reform process, Albania fired scores of judges and prosecutors, mostly due to unexplained personal or family wealth. Most of them faced no other penalty than losing their jobs but lately prosecutors have issued asset seizure orders for some of those dismissed.

Llalla was not among these who were dismissed because he decided to resign from the justice system following the end of his mandate as General...