Kosovo Indicts ex-Minister Over Extra 53 Million Payment for Motorway

Kosovo's then Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, called it one of the best infrastructural projects in the Balkans on the day it was inaugurated.

But the 61-kilometer-long motorway linking Kosovo and North Macedonia continues to yield controversies and corruption claims.

On February 4, the Kosovo Special Prosecution announced it had indicted former Minister of Infrastructure Pal Lekaj and two other ministry officials over the extra 53-million-euros the government gave the constructor, US-Turkish consortium Bechtel & Enka, for the government's delays in payments.

The first version of indictment named three officials but on Saturday the prosecution announced that a fourth official, Besim Tahiri, had been added to the list.

The indictment says former minister Lekaj, as head of Inter-Ministerial Council for the construction of the motorway, engaged his adviser, Eset Berisha, to negotiate the extra cost with the company.

With Berisha's help, it says Leka "completely ignored" the opinion of highway's supervision company, Hill International.

This had concluded that the government owed around 14.8 million euros to Bechtel & Enka, whose "additional financial demands" it called called "totally unreasonable and unacceptable".

"By hiding and not presenting the real situation to the other members of the [ministerial] Council, Lekaj together with Berisha … pushed other members of the council, under fake facts … to recommend that the government approve Bechtel & Enka's request for 53.1 million euros, for extension of construction works," the indictment says.

The indictment notes that Lekaj did not inform the council about Hill's opinion, which could have saved the government around 38 million euros.

The defendants...