The Defence File Is Already Leaking

A message to SPAK, and to every embassy in Tirana reading what has already escaped from a defence investigation.

Tirana Examiner Editorial Board

On Friday the Special Prosecution, SPAK, searched Albania’s Ministry of Defence and took documents. It has issued no statement. By Saturday, News24 was reporting the offences said to be registered, details of a court-authorised search, what investigators had taken, how long the ministry search lasted, the seizure of a senior official’s telephone and the first witness summonses. The outlet attributed part of that account to investigators of the National Bureau of Investigation.

Whether any investigator spoke is not established. If an investigator disclosed protected acts or information from the file, Article 295/a of the Criminal Code is explicit: “the prosecutor or the judicial police officer” (“prokurori ose oficeri i policisë gjyqësore”) who does so faces one to five years, and Bureau investigators are judicial police. If none did, SPAK should say so today.

The file concerns the defence ministry of a NATO member, an institution that holds classified procurement material, allied information and the commercial secrets of foreign partners. A leak from such a file tells every ally how Albania keeps what it is given.

Tirana Examiner asked for this investigation and wants it carried to the end. Our interest is the protection of Albania’s name and of a defence industry that is only beginning to exist. Both can be damaged long before a prosecutor proves an offence.

The embassies should read the coverage with the law beside it. News24 reports that SPAK is examining, “for the moment” (“për momentin”), abuse of office and breach of equality in tenders. Arms trafficking, the allegation broadcast from abroad by a defendant wanted since 2023, is not among them. Both reported offences require a person exercising public functions. A private businessman may have legal exposure, but he cannot commit either alone as principal, and a headline announcing “2 criminal offences for Ron Yeffet” (“2 vepra penale për Ron Yeffet”) is legally illiterate.

“Tender” has its own meaning in defence. The procurement law permits restricted procedures, negotiation and, in defined cases, purchases outside competition. The law on KAYO, the state defence company, provides competitive, unsolicited and direct routes for choosing private partners. A single bidder, an unpublished notice or a closed file may be suspicious in a road contract. In defence each can be exactly what the law provides.

Custody is the prosecution’s responsibility. The classified-information law binds prosecutors and Bureau investigators by name. Seizure does not declassify a document, and access depends on clearance and need to know. SPAK is entitled to every page it needs and answers for every page once it holds it. A prosecution that cannot protect a defence file will not reassure allies by announcing more searches.

We ask SPAK to investigate everything, to identify the legal regime before naming the breach, to establish how the details of its file reached the press, and to speak in its own name. Tirana’s embassies are already reading the portals. They should be able to read an institution that knows what it is holding.

The full legal analysis, provision by provision: Under Seal,

Under Seal