TIRANA, June 26 /ATA/- By I. Vata/ The US Ambassador to Albania, Yuri Kim, visited on Friday the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents (AIDSSH).
AIDSSH director Gentiana Sula briefed Ambassador Yuri Kim and Lan Crawford, Head of the Political and Economic Section, on the Authority’s activities, the pillars guiding the work of the institution and the daily challenges.
Verifying the clean records of senior officials is one of the important elements about the work of AIDSSH in the framework of transitional justice. As of March 31, 2020, a total of 481 candidates have been verified for Vetting (HPC, JAC, HJC, SPAK, Prosecution), of whom 11 turned out to be documented and 470 turned out to have clean records. Also, until March 31, 2020, 78 candidates have been verified for vetting in the Police Force, of whom 5 result to documented. Relevant decisions have been referred to the institutions and published in short form on the official website of the Authority, ” she said.
Gentiana Sula, the head of Authority, put the emphasis on the issue of thousands of people who have been subjected to forced disappearance under the communist regime and the activity of AIDSSH to throw light on their fate. Beyond concrete steps in this regard and the projects launched, it is needed a legal intervention to facilitate the process of search, identification and exhumation of the victims as well as to coordinate the work of institutions.
On his part, Simon Mirakaj, a member of the Authority, in addition to the challenges facing the institution, spoke about his history of persecution, internment in the Tepelena camp since his birth and the life spent in the internment villages of Lushnja together with thousands of others who were also subject of relentless persecution.
The meeting concluded with the promise of the ambassador to join the pilgrimage to Tepelena in August, in the frame of the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Systems.
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