TIRANA, March 20 /ATA/ The US assistant secretary, Tod Robinson, in an interview with journalist Anila Hoxha on Top Channel, says that the United States of America, through the DEA and the FBI, is helping SPAK in going after corrupt actors.
He says that the United States of America will use all tools such as the declaration of ‘non grata’ and visa sanctions to make sure that important officials, high level officials, high government officials, understand that for corrupt acts there is a price to be paid.
When asked what is the message that he gave to the special anti-corruption prosecutors and that you insist on repeating again, Robinson said that we gave a number of messages.
First, that they (SPAK) are doing a fantastic job and not only SPAK, but all the independent justice agencies are doing a fantastic job, a fantastic job that ordinary Albanians did not see when I was here, for example, in years 2004-2006. This was the first message; second – the United States Government is here to help them with their work. What I told him was, resources are limited everywhere in the world. But one of the places where we have no problem spending our resources is here in Albania, because of the excellent work that these institutions are doing. And the final message is that our goal is to continue to help – we have a great team here. The DEA is here. The Department of Justice is here. The FBI is here. We are doing great work with the prison system. And we intend to continue that work because it is important for the relationship between the United States and Albania. But more because it is important for ordinary Albanians to see this work being done and to see that it is being supported by the international community.
Asked about some of the advice or messages he gave to SPAK special prosecutors during these meetings, he said:
As I said before, we want them to know they have our support. We understand their needs and what they want to get from working with us. We want them to understand that we know it is not easy and there is still a lot of work to be done. But, in conclusion, the message is: if they are willing to do the hard work, we are here to help them. And it’s not just SPAK, it’s all independent agencies. It is the judicial system. It’s the prison system. You know, we want to work with the ministries, we want to work with the executive. We don’t want to exclude anyone. We want to be in an inclusive relationship so that everyone, from the ordinary citizens you mentioned earlier, to ministries and independent institutions, institutions of justice, we want everyone to work together now and into the future. We think that, you know, we want to thank these institutions for their work in the past, what they are doing now, but more importantly, what they will do in the future, to make Albania a better partner , to make Europe a better partner, and finally, to make our global alliance stronger against these international organized criminals.
The State Department and the Treasury Department have declared non-women politicians and business people. Will you continue to do this and is this an effective measure?
We will use every tool at our disposal to go after corrupt actors and to help Albanian institutions to go after corrupt actors.
We have a number of tools, and non-grata declarations and visa sanctions are among them, and we will continue to use them because they are effective ways of making sure that those important officials, high-level officials, officials high government officials to understand that for corrupt acts there is a price to be paid and all the tools we have at our disposal will be put to work against those corrupt actors, he concludes.
/sm/
